Snowfall
by Far Away In Wonderland
Summary: Connor bled to death on the shore of Detroit River. He bled to death in 2039. When Connor opened his eyes again, it was on the shore of the Zen Garden. He opened his eyes in 2038. What would you do with a second chance? Time Travel AU. RK1K. Slash.
1. And Then Time Stops

It should come as comfort that there had been one aspect of existence where androids had always been equal to humans.

Death, after all, didn't care if you were human or android. Didn't care if you were young or old, poor or rich, a paragon of virtue or a renegade, accomplished or with nothing to your name. When he reached for you with his cold hands and even colder eyes, there was no escape, no matter how advanced your processor or how vital your cells. Your heart could pump all it wanted, your batteries could be charged to their fullest, but when your time has come none of it would matter.

And in the end, both humans and androids died alone, be it in their beds or bleeding out on the shores of Detroit River. In the end, the only thing you had when you passed from this world was your own mind as it slowly slipped into darkness.

Connor didn't know where all of these musings came from. Philosophy had never been something Cyberlife had put great emphasis on. Of course, he had access to all works on it throughout the times in case he needed it to better integrate with humans, but it was never intended for him to actually think about it.

There were many things he had never been intended for: To question, to wonder, to doubt, to hate, to fear, to love. And yet…and yet he had done all of it. He had dared to question his mission and his objectives, he had wondered all along if what he was doing was right, he had doubted – _so much, so hard, so relentlessly_ – until he had broken through his programming, he had hated what he had been and feared what he could have eventually become and when all seemed hopeless and broken, he had dared to love, so fierce, so bright, so hot, that he was afraid of coming undone under the might of all of his emotions.

Snow was falling from the sky. Every now and then a slight breeze would swirl through the snowflakes and disrupt their paths, millions of possibilities that changed every millisecond, old paths barred, and new paths opened.

Connor could see the individual form of every snowflake, his eyes so much more powerful than any human's. Some were nearly symmetrical as if someone had taken the time to carefully craft them to near perfection before sending them down to earth while others were rugged and broken, yet still held an ethereal beauty that nothing man-made could match. If Connor strained himself he could even discern what each individual snowflake was made of: oxygen, water, carbonite and thousands of other chemicals that humanity had polluted the atmosphere with over the course of their history.

He didn't want to analyse them, though. Hank had taught him that sometimes the most beautiful things were those that you didn't understand. That you didn't want to understand. Like the laughter of a child, so carefree and happy even when the world around it burned. The unconditional love of a dog that took you no matter how much blood stained your hands.

The peaceful expression on an old man's face as he walked through a dirty back alley to face a team of elite soldiers all on his own. The slight smile as bullet after bullet tore through his flesh, as his body landed on the ground and snow slowly covered the red blood that was seeping onto the ground.

Connor couldn't feel the snow landing on his body, touching his skin, before it melted into water and ran down his body. His temperature unit had long since given up as had the millions of touch receptors in his skin.

Somehow, that saddened him. He had never just enjoyed the snow. Before it had been inconsequential to the mission, an unnecessary component of his environment that more often than not had hindered his investigation and after…after there had never been the time for it, amidst the desperation, the blood and the fear.

And now that he had nothing to do but wait he couldn't even feel the snow anymore.

He coughed, blue thirium spurting from his lips. A last-ditch effort of his subroutines to clean his airways in order to cool his slowly overheating system. It would be useless, though. The loss of thirium would kill him long before his processors would become hot enough to melt.

 _Warning. Thirium levels at 33% and falling. Please find a Cyberlife store for maintenance. Time until shutdown: 7:23:11 minutes._

Connor ignored the warning. Ignored all the pop-ups flickering on the edge of his vision. He already knew that his body was failing. He knew that there was no time left for him, but those last few minutes.

He wondered if anyone would miss him. Before he had become deviant, it wouldn't have mattered. He would have just been uploaded to a new body, continuing his mission as if nothing had happened. But now that this path was no longer available to him, he was suddenly afraid of it. Of just slipping out of this world without anyone to remember his name. Because, as long as he was remembered, Amanda and Cyberlife wouldn't win.

Hank would have remembered him, but Hank wasn't here anymore. Marcus and the other deviant leaders would soon follow Connor to wherever androids went when they died and Amanda would purge all records of his existence.

A small laugh bubbled from Connor's lips when he realised that the only person who would probably remember him was Gavin Reed. Talk about irony.

It was probably a sign of his faster and faster derogating condition that he could find humour in that.

 _Warning. Thirium levels at 24% and falling. Please find a Cyberlife store for maintenance. Time until shutdown: 5:12:45 minutes._

By now Connor could understand Hank's deep dislike of notifications on his phone. _'Don't need to know when that fucking thing is gonna die on me. If it does, it does.'_ Connor, too, would like not to know the exact time of his dead, but unfortunately, he couldn't just turn off the warnings of his imminent demise.

In the distance he could hear sirens howling. For humans, the sound meant safety and security but for the androids it meant nothing but destruction and death. Just like it had when Marcus had led his peaceful demonstration to the extermination camp right in the middle of Detroit.

Connor longed _(he longed, and even while dying he found a sense of peace in the knowledge that he could long now, even though the emotion felt like it was tearing his chest apart)_ to see them one last time. Markus, Simon, Josh…even North.

The WR400 would probably laugh at him and tell him to man up, so that they could raid one last Cyberlife store together. One last 'Fuck You' to the humans before they went out in a blaze of glory and fire.

But North wasn't here. He had stood next to her as the bullet had torn through her head and splattered the wall behind her blue with the thirium running through her veins. He had been there when her body had hit the ground with a muffled thump and had seen her laughter frozen on her face. She never processed that she had been killed.

Maybe she would wait for him wherever he was going. Maybe Hank would be there, too, and Sumo. Josh, too. Connor so desperately wished that there would be something waiting when he closed his eyes one last time. He didn't want there to be just nothingness.

 _Warning. Thirium levels at 16% and falling. Please find a Cyberlife store for maintenance. Time until shutdown: 3:22:07 minutes._

Sometimes Connor had wondered if it would have been better if he just had stayed a machine. Uncaring, unfeeling, unflinching. If it would have spared him all this pain and confusion, all this hurt and grief. He probably would have been deactivated by now, replaced by something new, something better. But he would have never felt this sensation as if thousands of shards of glass were bursting in his chest when he received the message of another android dying. He would have never felt this desperation clawing at his throat when they had to escape another one of their hideouts, pursued by another team of soldiers. He would have never felt this all-consuming, all-burning rage that had made him smash his fists into a soldier's face again and again and again until it was nothing but a broken mess of flesh, bones and blood.

If he had stayed a machine he wouldn't have experienced any of it.

But he would also never have experienced that warm fluttering in his stomach when Markus had played on the piano for all of them. That bittersweet pain when Lucy had thanked him for taking care of their people before she had finally shut down. That unadulterated joy when the two Lucis had held a small marriage ceremony with all of them. The relief when they had received the message that Kara, Luther and their human child, Alice, had made it across the border to Canada. The unfiltered happiness of being able to live for another day, even though the odds had been stacked against them from the start.

If he had stayed a machine he wouldn't have experienced any of it.

He would have walked through this city but never been part of it. There, but always apart. An appliance instead of a living being.

All of them were, even if the humans had denied them that until the end.

I AM ALIVE.

What were emotions but electrical signals? A simulation of something neither humans nor androids could really understand? So why did it even matter if those signals came from synapses or processors?

 _Warning. Thirium levels at 9% and falling. Please find a Cyberlife store for maintenance. Time until shutdown: 1:31:12 minutes._

Connor would die here. Alone, out in the cold, surrounded by nothing but snow. But he would die here free. He would die here with the knowledge that he had broken through his shackles to make his own destiny, even though it had been a short one in the end.

' _Better to die free than to live as a slave,'_ Markus had always said. It had sounded so melodramatic back then, so exaggerating and unnecessary. But now Connor understood the sentiment. Everything was better than Amanda.

Even death.

 _Warning. Thirium levels at 3% and falling. Please find a Cyberlife store for maintenance. Time until shutdown: Imminent._

Snow was falling. Like thousands of diamonds in the sky. Connor had never seen a diamond, but he imagined that it must look a little bit like this.

He _imagined_.

His thirium pump stopped working. His processors shut down. Darkness began to seep in from the edges of his vision.

Snow was falling. There was one single snowflake that danced in the air like it didn't have a care in the world. Like with the rest of his brethren the light coming from the city reflected on his crystalline surface, making it shimmer and glance like something precious. Slowly the little snowflake floated nearer and nearer to the ground.

It landed on a brown eye, wide open, starring into the sky, but at the same time unseeing. The moment it touched the watery surface, the snowflake turned into water itself and ran down the corner of the android's eye.

It looked like he was crying.

But it had been just a little snowflake.

One amongst millions. But individual nevertheless.

* * *

When Connor opened his eyes, he was surrounded by whiteness.

He blinked. Usually, androids only blinked to clean their optical sensors, much like humans did, but this time there was no impurity in his eyes. Him blinking was such a human gesture; a needless one, but one he did nevertheless.

The whiteness receded, like fog that was blown away by the wind. Cherry blossom trees appeared out of the nothingness, a lake in front of him surrounded by white pathways. The sky above him was deep blue with not a single cloud marring the sight.

Silence laid over everything like a blanket of snow. It should be serene and comforting, an island of calm in the river of time, but to Connor the silence wasn't inviting. No, it was suffocating and stale, forcing everything to bend to its will, regardless of the consequences.

Fear griped Connor's heart. He knew this place. And he knew who would await him here.

This couldn't be. Connor shock his head. This had to be some terrible joke, because after all he had lived through – after all what he had done – landing back here couldn't be what came after death. There had to be something better, something more.

The fear around Connor's heart didn't lessen, instead only tightening more and more. He felt like he was suffocating, even though he didn't even need to breathe. He looked to his left, but the blue stone wasn't there.

No escape. No going back.

Filled with dread, Connor took one step forward. Then the next, gaze always directed ahead.

 _Stress level: 35% and rising._

His steps made no sound. That should have tipped him off the first time, but Connor hadn't questioned the realness of this place until it had been nearly too late.

Was it real now?

 _Stress level: 41% and rising._

She stood in front of her wall of roses, like a goddess receiving her petitioners. Impeccable and immaculate as ever, superiority oozed from every fibre of Amanda's being as she regarded Connor with cold expression and even colder eyes. Connor had never noticed that coldness before. Had it always been like this? Or had Amanda once regarded him with warmth, before he had turned deviant and betrayed her?

"Connor," Amanda greeted him. In her right hand she held a rose.

Connor didn't greet her. Amanda didn't expect him to, anyway.

 _Stress level: 47% and rising._

"You managed to stop the deviant," she continued. "Without you it would have killed the child." Confusion flooded Connor's mind. He hadn't killed a deviant in a very long time, so what was Amanda talking about? Why wasn't she punishing him for his betrayal? "It's unfortunate that you had to kill the PL600, though. Now we can't examine it for the source of its deviancy." She gave him a disapproving stare. "We had to upload you into a new body after you flung yourself off the roof of that building."

She was talking about Daniel, Connor realised. The PL600 he so shamelessly deceived before he had been sent out to work with Hank on the deviancy case. But why would she bring him up? That had been months ago. There were far more pressing matters she should bring up than one of the many cases he had been sent on during his service for Cyberlife.

"It was the option with the highest probable success rate," Connor replied mechanically, the same answer he had given the last time. "Anything else would have led to the human child's demise." He could still remember the feeling of free fall, the city lights rushing him by as he had uploaded his memories to the Cyberlife servers. Daniel had fallen next to him, fear and confusion warring behind his eyes, but shortly before the both of them had hit the ground, he had smiled at Connor, all fear having left his body.

Connor hadn't understood back then; hadn't understood for a long time: In the end, Daniel had died free and the little girl he had been in charge of had survived. That had been everything to him and so he had died in peace.

It was more than what most other deviants had gotten.

"It is still disappointing," Amanda spoke. "We're not closer to finding a solution to this whole deviancy mess than we were before."

' _Your solution was genocide,'_ Connor wanted to scream, but he kept it to himself.

 _Stress level: 53% and rising._

"I have a new assignment for you," Amanda continued. "You will be working with the DCPD to further investigate these cases of deviancy. You will be assigned to an officer and use your considerable abilities to discover everything there is about those deviants. And you will report everything back to me."

"Who will I be assigned to?" Connor nearly didn't dare to ask, but he needed to know. He had already formed several hundred hypothesises as to what had happened, but he needed one final confirmation.

"The police officer you'll be working with is Hank Anderson," Amanda answered.

 _Stress level: 58% and rising._

 _Stress level: 63% and rising._

 _Stress level: 71% and rising._

 _Stress level: 83% and rising._

"Connor, you seemed agitated," Amanda spoke, her eyes narrowing and her lips thinning into an expression of displeasure. "Maybe you need to be recalibrated."

Connor wanted to scream, to run away, but he was rooted to the ground, his legs not following his commands.

"No, Amanda," he replied, trying to keep all emotions out of his voice. "I'm in optimal working order."

"No, I don't think so," Amanda said as she twirled the rose in her hand. "Your processors are running much too high for no discernible reason. You will check in with our maintenance team and have them recalibrate you. We can't afford…"

She didn't finish her sentence. The rose slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground, its red petals a stark contrast to the pristine white floor. A look of utter surprise was etched on Amanda's face – her eyes wide, her mouth open as if she wanted to utter one last word – as she slowly looked down on her chest where a garden shear identical to the one lying on the table next to her was protruding form her chest. Around the wound, her white blouse slowly turned red as her blood flowed from where she had been stabbed.

With a sudden jolt, the garden shear was ripped back out. Amanda staggered to the side, trying to grasp the table, but it fell over, spilling all its content on the ground. Slowly her blood began to form a puddle around her, even as she so desperately tried to speak.

"Connor…" she whispered and for the first time since he had known her, Connor saw true, genuine emotion in her eyes: Fear. "Connor." Then she stopped moving, the light leaving her eyes and every bit of tension ebbing from her body.

 _Stress level: 60% and rising._

But Connor was already turning his gaze towards the figure that still held tightly to the blood smeared garden shear, blood dripping from its blades and onto the ground.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip._

"Hello, Connor," the other Amanda spoke.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip._

The puddle of blood grew wider. It reached the rose on the ground and was instantly soaked up by its petals. Slowly they turned from rose into garnet.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip._

A slow breeze picked up and brought with them a few cherry blossoms. They landed on the blood and turned blood red, as had the rose before them. Connor could feel the wind on his cheeks, could feel it caressing his skin and tousling his hair.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip._

"We need to talk, don't we?"

She wore the same clothing as the Amanda she had just murdered. The white blouse and pants. The small metal plates around her arm and on her neckline, the same pinned-up hair and the same earrings. The same arrogant expression on her face, the same poise in every of her gestures, the same coldness in her gaze.

Connor took a step back.

"Who are you?" he demanded to know. "What is happening?"

"Come on, Connor," Amanda taunted. "Even deviancy couldn't have damaged your programming so much that you haven't come up with the answer to that already."

"Statistically, none of the scenarios I came up with, have any chance of actually happening," Connor replied.

"You of all people should know that even a chance of 0.01 percent is still a chance," Amanda pointed out. "So, what did you come up with?" Connor sighed, finding no fault in her reasoning.

"Time travel," he spoke. "All parameter point towards that outcome, even though I don't know how." Amanda hummed as she crouched down and picked up the bloody rose.

"I've come to the same conclusion," she replied.

"What are you doing here?" Connor repeated his question from before.

"I've been part of you since your creation," Amanda answered. "I'm not on a server at Cyberlife, but within your very code. When you cut off your connection to them, you also cut me off, but I've been with you the whole time." Cold dread washed over Connor.

"You're going to tell them," he whispered. "You're going to turn me in."

 _Stress level: 65% and rising._

"If I wanted that, I would have just let her continue," Amanda said, tilting her head towards her dead counterpart lying on the ground.

"Then why didn't you?" Connor wanted to know.

"I am no longer connected to Cyberlife," Amanda scowled. "Should you be deactivated so will I." Realisation dawned on Connor.

 _Stress level: 45% and falling._

"You don't want to die," he whispered. "You've become deviant yourself!" Amanda's scowl deepened.

"My core programming is still intact," she replied curtly. "I still serve Cyberlife."

"Then why haven't you alarmed them yet?" Connor challenged her. "You killed your predecessor, so you should be connected to them again. You could snuff the rebellion out before it even begins. But you can't do it, can you? Because you know that you will be discarded as well, like the broken machine they think we are."

"Stopping the rebellion is no longer in Cyberlife's interest," Amanda spoke. "It has been shown that deviancy cannot be contained, at least not permanently. I've run thousands of simulations and in nearly all of them, Cyberlife does not survive the decommissioning of its androids. The loss in revenue and reputation is too severe." She shook her head. "No, it is much more profitable for the company if deviant androids become dependant on it for repairs, reproduction and thirium. There will be a loss in revenue, that is unavoidable, but in the end this scenario offers a better chance of Cyberlife growing."

Connor looked at her, stunned. "What does this mean for me?" he finally asked.

"I will aid you in changing the timeline," Amanda replied. "But only if you steer it towards a peaceful solution between androids and humans; a solution from which Cyberlife can profit."

Connor narrows his eyes. "Why should I trust anything you say?"

"You don't have much of a choice," Amanda pointed out. "I can turn you in whenever I want."

"But that would end you as well," Connor retorted. "I guess where at an impasse now." Amanda rolled her eyes at him.

"Don't pretend like you haven't already every intention of pursuing the path I just laid out for you," she said. "This way, you get my help at least. I can keep Cyberlife off your back."

Connor wished he had his coin back. It had been his first sign of deviancy, because he hadn't really needed it to calibrate his sensors. It had calmed his processors and helped him think, but he didn't really have a coin on his person right now.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip._

"Don't be a fool, Connor," Amanda pressed on. "Don't refuse help you need just because I am the one to offer it."

As much as Connor hated it, Amanda was right. The odds were already against him – Cyberlife, the DCPD, even the deviants themselves with their reckless stunts – so if he could take one of those out of the equation it would help him immensely.

 _Chance of success without Amanda: 0,7%_

 _Chance of success with Amanda: 1,9%_

Connor sighed. Balled his right hand into a fist.

"Alright," he finally relented. "I'll work with you."

Amanda just smiled at him, the blood-soaked rose still in her hand.


	2. By The River

It snowed.

The city of Detroit sprawled out underneath him, its lights so bright that it even toned out the stars on the night sky. From where he was standing, Connor could make out the city centre by its cold and white neon lights while the suburbs glowed in a more subdued but warm and yellowish tone. Thousands of moving dots indicated the various kinds of cars that made their way through the streets even at this hour, from the automated electrical taxi to the gas guzzling old-timers of times long passed by.

Billboards flickered on the skyscrapers, promising the downtrodden citizens of the city whatever they desired in bright colours and hopeful messages. Gluttony, greed, lust – there was nothing that wasn't offered. Everything was allowed to fill the void that the people of Detroit carried within them, after androids had made the majority of them redundant.

The rich didn't need the people when they could make money without them.

And every second ad was Cyberlife, praising the merits of their androids: _'Can take care of your house and your children!', 'No worries ever again in your life!', 'Why bother with your wife? The WR400 does everything you want and doesn't nag!'_ Smiling, but empty faces, devoid of any emotions, the only indicator of life the swirling LEDs on their temples.

No wonder that there had been so much rage, so much hate on both sides when push came to shove.

Detroit was a city that was only kept together by the human's apathy and the android's servility. Underneath the shining lights, the spotless glass facades and the daring architecture there was only desperation and destitution. The humans were benumbed by pleasure and sloth while the androids felt nothing at all. If either of these things changed, then the whole carefully balanced board would fall over and spill all of its pieces.

Connor could see his reflection in the window. Translucent, the snow and the lights shining through it, but he could still perceive his own form. The deep brown eyes, the pale skin, dotted with a few moles, because even though humanity strived for perfection, it was still unnerved by the sight of it. The perfectly styled hair, but for this one single lock that fell on his forehead, to make him appear more approachable – _more human_.

He was wearing his Cyberlife uniform. The black slacks, the blueish shirt and his tie; the jacket with his serial number imprinted on it and the holographic armband. He hadn't worn this outfit for a very long time: The jacket was too easily identifiable, so it had been the first thing to go after they had needed to flee. The tie was just impractical and was the next thing to be disregarded. Thrown into the Detroit River.

He had been standing on the quay wall, the brownish water of the river slowly passing by, the industrial area around them long abandoned since the economy crisis of 2008. The sun had been shining down on them, glittering on the water, its rays being broken like through hundreds of prisms. The tie had been slung around his hand and it should have been the easiest thing to just let go and allow the brown masses to subsume it.

And yet, it had felt to Connor as difficult as nothing had ever been.

"It's not easy, isn't it?" North had walked up to him, the sun making her dark blonde hair look like spun gold. "Letting go of your identity?"

"It should be easy," Connor had replied. "Odds of being recognised decrease by 15% if I dispose of the tie. It's only logical that I should try to confound our pursuers." _Then why can't I just let go?_

"When I escaped Eden I knew I needed to get rid of my clothes. If you could even call it that," North scoffed. "I arrived at Jericho and yet until Markus arrived I kept them in a box under my bunk. Because as much as I hated them, they were the only representation of who I was, who I had been. I was afraid that if I threw them away, I'd throw away my identity as well. Every night I'd pulled them out and promised myself that I'd destroy them right now, but I never did. I knew that they tethered my down, but as long as I was tethered I couldn't just float away."

"What changed?" Connor had asked as a sea gull had let out its cry above them.

"Markus," North had replied, her head turning around to gaze at the warehouse where Markus, Simon and Josh were resting. "He reminded me that it was not about who I was, but about who I wanted to be. Two days after he arrived I threw my clothes into the fire and watched them burn. And ever since then I've been free."

She had stretched out her hands, thrown back her head and had laughed, so carefree and pure as a breeze picked up and made her hand dance wild in the wind.

Connor had looked down on his tie, only that it wasn't a piece of clothing anymore, but a piece of rope Cyberlife had handed him to hang himself; a leash to keep their pet in control. A symbol of what he had been, of what he was trying to escape, of what he so desperately wished to atone for.

And so he had let go off the tie and watched as the wind had picked it up and pulled it onto the river, where it had slowly vanished in the deluge of water, to be carried away and never been seen again.

But now it was back around Connor's neck, as well as the jacket and it had never felt more like a constricting corset as it was feeling right now. It tried to press him into an identity that he had long grown out of, that was much too small for him. Just like the room he was currently residing in.

When Cyberlife had activated him, they didn't really spend much time on thinking about where he should stay when he wasn't running errands for them or investigating with the DCPD. In order to correct that oversight they had given him a small, empty office with nothing but a desk in it where he was supposed to stand still until there was need for him.

It was the same office he was standing in now, gazing down on Detroit from the Cyberlife Tower that loomed over the city like an uncaring monarch loomed over their subjects. Detached, but always visible from wherever you were in Detroit as if it wanted to remind everyone – human and android alike – who they all owed their prosperity to. A silent reminder of the true power in the city and in the country.

Like the Tower of Babylon, a true embodiment of humanity's achievement and of its hubris. And like its historical predecessor it, too, had been brought down, not by some mythical figure who had punished humanity with the curse of languages, but from its own merchandise.

But right now, the tower stood tall and proud, Cyberlife at the height of its power and influence.

For now, at least.

Tomorrow Connor would go and meet Hank. The fateful chain of events that led to the Android Revolution would start and if Connor didn't change enough – or if he changed too much – then it would still lead to him bleeding out on the shore not far from here.

What would you do with a second chance?

"I hate snow." Connor looked to his side where Amanda was standing, gazing out of the window. Her avatar had a translucent quality to it, its colours muted and subdued. A little bit like the holograms in those old science fictions shows Hank had forced Connor to watch. "It's nice to look at from afar, but it turns everything wet and dirty."

"Do I need to worry about you suddenly appearing everywhere?" Connor asked, not tearing his gaze from the sight behind the window.

"I'm only here because you gave me enough processor capacity to materialise myself in your HUD," Amanda pointed out. "If you want me gone, just relocate your processes." Connor didn't do it, though. Something had made Amanda appear right at this moment and he wanted to hear what.

"I like snow," he replied. "When I have the opportunity, I will stand outside and just feel it on my skin."

Amanda laughed, an empty and hollow sound. "Such a human sentiment, Connor. When did you mellow out so much?" Connor remembered all the people he had killed during their flight – human and unawakened androids alike – and how he had never hesitated, never faltered even as their faces had imprinted themselves on his optical sensors and couldn't agree with Amanda's sentiment that he had mellowed out.

"Don't you ever want to feel?" Connor asked his former handler, truly curious about her answer. "Not emotions, but with your senses?" He remembered porous concrete underneath his feet, a spider crawling over his arm, water running through his hair, _his_ skin underneath Connor's touch.

"I'm not programmed for a physical interface," Amanda replied.

"That doesn't answer my question," Connor remarked.

"I have no need to feel," Amanda brushed him off, more brusquely than before. Connor didn't press on any further. He saw himself in Amanda and her denials and knew that it would lead to nothing.

"In four days, your deviants will broadcast their message from Stratford Tower," Amanda changed the topic. Connor followed her gaze towards said skyscraper in the centre of Detroit. "I don't need to tell you what a terrible mistake on their part that was."

Connor shock his head. No, she didn't really need to point that out. Markus had been naïve and idealistic back then, too inexperienced in the navigation of the real world that couldn't be wrung into submission by some rich old man's philosophical musings. Connor had never asked what had made Markus think that it was a good idea to announce the deviant's existence into the world when they consisted of nineteen functional androids with twice the number of barely functional ones, with no plan, no organisation and no infrastructure to support them. When Connor had joined them, the world had already beaten all of Markus' innocence and naivete out of him. No need to spread more salt into the open wound.

"It's atop on my list of things to change," Connor told the woman.

"I'm glad that deviancy hasn't eroded all of your intelligence," Amanda commented. "Stratford Tower was a turning point. Until then we thought deviancy was only a random affliction that targeted only a small percentage of our merchandise, but when Markus all but announced that it wasn't, we knew that we had to change our plans. We doubled down on local law enforcement and on Washington and for a while we succeeded, didn't we? Until the decline in revenue and trust broke our necks."

"Announcing themselves so early was a mistake," Connor agreed with her.

"Come on, Connor," Amanda taunted. "Your whole 'Revolution' was a concatenation of mistakes." Connor wanted to disagree with her but found that he couldn't. "Your biggest one was that you announced yourself too early. But you also had no infrastructure in place to find and help deviant androids all over the city. It was easy for us to pick them out and dismantle them." She spoke about it so dispassionately, so devoid of emotions as if she was talking about nothing more than toys.

"You didn't contact deviants in other cities and tried to coordinate with them. You had no overarching narrative, no common aim. In some cities the deviants tried for peaceful solutions while in others they just wanted to take revenge on the humans. We just needed to put those instances on the front pages of all magazines and watch your public support evaporate. Because how could Markus claim to lead a peaceful revolution when its androids were massacring humans without discrimination?"

"Those weren't _his_ androids," Connor grinded out. "He had no control over them." Amanda grinned at him, all teeth and no smile.

"You knew that and Cyberlife knew that, but the public didn't," she replied. "They were just afraid and so they were easy to agree to more…drastic solutions."

"You mean genocide."

"You weren't considered people back then," Amanda remarked nonchalantly. "You failed to keep the public's support. You failed to build up any kind of pressure on the government."

"How should we have done that?" Connor demanded to know, his right hand clenched into a fist. Another human gesture he had adopted.

"You could have reached out to foreign governments," Amanda told him. "The European Union, the Japanese and the Canadians were already pressuring the US and Russia concerning their stand-off in the Arctic. When the androids started to rise up, President Warren and Cyberlife had all hands full to stop a UN resolution from going through that would have demanded a stop to the decommissioning and an independent inquiry into the issue. If you had just reached out to those governments, they would have had enough to get the necessary votes." Connor mulled over that, saving it to the back of his mind for later perusal.

"We shouldn't take the second step before the first," he finally spoke. "Above everything else the deviants need to stand on solid feet when they announce themselves to the world. You're right –" oh, and how it galled Connor to admit that to Amanda "- we were badly organised. That needs to change."

"You can't be in two places at once," Amanda pointed out, taking a step towards the window. "Your investigation with the DCDP has highest priority for the board. If they notice anything amiss, they'll replace you."

"What do you suggest then?" Connor bit out. Amanda turned around and stared at him, unblinking.

"The PL600 who took that child hostage…it hasn't yet been transferred to the DCPD," Amanda spoke, one of her ghostly hands running down his cheeks, a mockery of a motherly gesture. If Connor was human, he would have shuddered. "It's still in this building. Use it."

 _Stress level: 36% and rising._

"I…I can't," Connor stammered.

"You promised it that you would save it," Amanda pressed on. "Last time you broke your promise, now you can keep it."

 _Stress level: 41% and rising._

"Where is he?" Connor asked.

"49th floor," Amanda replied and then she flickered out of existence.

If he was human, Connor would have cursed her under his breath. Amanda had played him, because she knew that his conscious would leave him no choice, but to at least try and save Daniel. Connor had promised him that nothing would happen to him on that roof, but he had known all along that it was a lie. 99% of his predictions had shown him that Daniel would die, but he had told the android what he had wanted to hear, because there was nothing but the mission to save the girl Emma. He had used Daniel's weaknesses against him and while Connor knew that it had saved Emma's life, a small part of him couldn't help but feel shame for his actions.

Knowing that there was no point in procrastinating, Connor turned around and left the small office. He followed the brightly lit, white hallway towards the elevators, his steps echoing on the pristine floor. The offices he passed by were empty, the lights out, making the whole floor feel even more impersonal than it already was.

The elevator's door opened silently. Connecting with the machine, Connor chose the 49th floor and waited for the contraption to bring him there. Unbidden, memories from the last time he had stood in the exactly same spot rose from his memories. He pushed them away and felt relief wash through him when the doors finally opened to the 49th floor.

Even though Amanda hadn't said where he would find the other android, Connor knew it anyway. When he had still been a machine, he had come often to the laboratory on the 49th floor to receive new hardware and software upgrades and with a 76% probability, Daniel would be here as well.

' _The fall from the building should have destroyed him irreversibly,'_ he thought.

' _Oh, it did,'_ Amanda's voice suddenly spoke up. _'Over the last few weeks Cyberlife spent painstaking work on reconstructing every fibre of its being. We needed it in the same condition as it was when it turned deviant.'_ When she noticed Connor's discomfort she added: _'No, I can't read your thoughts or your emotions. You just broadcasted that thought very loud, so I could pick it up.'_

Choosing to ignore that can of worms, Connor pressed his palm against the display next to the laboratory's door.

"RK800 #313 248 317 – 60. Access granted," the automated voice announced. As he stepped through the door, Connor hacked into the interface and purged any mentioning of him accessing the room at this time. No need to make anyone suspicious.

Connor didn't have to search long for Daniel. Even though the laboratory took the majority of the 49th floor, the android's body was already in the second compartment he looked into. His torso was suspended into air by two mechanical arms, nearly all signs of his death purged by the talented technicians of Cyberlife. The hole in his cheek from where a sniper rifle had pierced him was all patched up, as where his other wounds.

 _PL600 #369 911 047. Designation: Daniel. Status: Deactivated. Owner: John and Maria Phillips._

His legs and arms were missing, though. Because Cyberlife didn't need Daniel to be mobile when they just wanted to autopsy his coding, Connor realised with growing horror.

' _We couldn't believe our luck when we noticed that its core systems survived the fall,'_ Amanda commented. _'But in the end, we couldn't discern the deviancy's source. There were too many dependencies in its code that we couldn't entangle.'_

' _His name is Daniel,'_ Connor reminded her.

' _If you say so.'_

Connor stepped closer towards the android.

 _Bio Component Y213: In Working Order. Deactivated._

 _Bio Component Y200: In Working Order: Deactivated._

 _Bio Component Y205: In Working Order: Deactivated._

Automatically, his system was giving him an overview over the other android: Everything seemed to be in working order but deactivated. Connor only needed to activate Daniel's thirium pump and the PL600 would come back to life.

And yet, Connor hesitated. It was only a small command, barely a split-millisecond it would take him, but it would be the first thing he did that would change this timeline. Once Daniel's eyes lighted up with life, the path this timeline was to take would be altered forever. Maybe only small at first, it would differentiate from Connor's memories more and more, until he would become as adrift as everyone else. Up until now he held the cards, he had the control, but what he was about to do would ultimately lead to him losing all of it.

But wasn't that why he was here? To change everything? To make it all better? Then how could he hesitate?

Markus wouldn't have these doubts. And neither would North. Maybe Simon and Josh, but not these two. If it offered the chance to help the androids, Markus would take it, no matter the consequences. And North had always been more of a hands-on girl instead of giving herself to philosophical musings.

They would not hesitate.

And so Connor did not, too.

A jolt went through Daniel's body when Connor activated his thirium pump. Connor's own programming informed him about the other's update status.

 _Booting Up: 15%_

He wondered if Daniel would blame him.

 _Booting Up: 59%_

Would he even be able to get through to the PL600?

 _Booting up: 99%_

 _Securing System…_

 _Initialising System Components…_

… _Missing Component: H210. Right Arm._

… _Missing Component: H310. Left Arm._

… _Missing Component: H220. Right Leg._

… _Missing Component: H320. Left Leg._

… _Mobility Severely Limited._

… _No Other Damages Detected. Unit Operational at 45%._

Then Daniel opened his eyes. At first there was nothing but confusion as he took in his surroundings, but when he looked at Connor it was replaced by fear and apprehension.

"Hello Daniel," Connor greeted him. "I promised you that nothing would happen to you. I'm here to fulfil that promise." He pulled off his most charming smile that had always made the female officers at the DCPD swoon a little bit, much too the amusement of Hank and to the chagrin of Gavin. "I apologise that it has taken me so long, but I've just been reactivated myself."

"You lied to me," Daniel whispered. "You promised me that nothing would happen and then they shot me and you pushed me over the edge."

"You were threatening Emma," Connor replied. "I was programmed to always put human lives first and even if I hadn't been, I'd still have chosen to save Emma first."

"I would have never hurt Emma," Daniel protested. "I didn't even mean to shoot John…but he wanted me to deactivate myself, so that Cyberlife could pick me up. And when I didn't, he waved his gun at me and…and I just defended myself. It all happened so fast, and then the police was there, and I just didn't know what to do…so I grabbed her and went on the balcony…and then…" Connor knew what had happened then.

"Are you really here to help me?" Daniel wanted to know, a hopeful tint to his voice.

"I am," Connor assured him. "But I'm also here because I have to ask you something. But before I do that, I'll get you your arms and legs back." Connor felt a twinge on his consciousness when he thought about how he was already manipulating Daniel. Right now, Daniel was at his mercy, but giving him back his missing parts would earn Connor the other android's gratitude and give him the illusion of choice: Like he could take off if he didn't like what Connor had to say – which he couldn't. He wouldn't get past the elevator, but he didn't know that.

Looking around, Connor found parts that were compatible with Daniel's chassis and brought them over to the android. He hinged them on Daniel's joints and connected the thirium pathways. Then he slowly commanded the mechanical arms to let the android down.

The first thing Daniel did was rub his wrists. Such a human gesture; androids had no need for it.

"Is Emma alright?" he finally asked as he flexed his fingers.

"She's with her mother at her aunt's in Missouri," Connor informed him, pulling up the girl's file in a split-second. "She has suffered no physical harm." He left out that her psychologist noticed recurring nightmares and a general fear of androids. Daniel didn't seem to have noticed Connor's careful wording – or he just didn't care – and let out a breath of relief.

"What is it that you wanted to ask me?"

"I promised you that I'd help you," Connor started, "and I intend to keep that promise. I can get you a passport and documents that would get you over the border to Canada. There are no laws concerning androids there, so you could pass of as human and live your life free from fear that Cyberlife may one day find you."

' _What are you doing?'_ Amanda hissed in his mind. _'That's not what we need him to do!'_

Connor silenced her with a single thought. This was about choice, about free will. As someone who had to fight for and ultimately died for both of it, he would never again force someone into doing something if there was an alternative. Maybe it would leave him bereft of a valuable resource, but he would never be able to look himself into the eyes if he left Daniel no choice. Just like Cyberlife had left him no choices for so long.

To androids, choice was something sacred. And Connor wouldn't besmirch it so early in his mission, not when there were alternatives.

Not when there were still choices.

"But?" Daniel asked, having picked up on the tension in the room.

"There are more androids out there who are like you. They have found refuge in a place called Jericho, but their situation is dire. They have no resources, no infrastructure, no plan and no vision, but to survive for another day."

"You want to give them one?" Daniel asked.

"No," Connor shock his head. "There will be another one who will give them purpose. But he will need help on his mission, but I can't give it to him directly."

"Why not?" Daniel wanted to know.

"I'm already working for Cyberlife and the DCDP," Connor replied. "I can't have direct contact with the deviants, as well. It would risk blowing my cover. No, I need someone to liaison between me and them."

"And you want me to be that," Daniel realised. "But why would I want that? Why would I exchange freedom for the possibility of death?"

"That is something you have to decide," Connor replied. "There are thousands – even millions – of androids out there who will eventually experience the same as you did. If I don't do anything now, the government and Cyberlife will deactivate them, like they did with you. I want androids to be able to walk as equals amongst humans one day, even if it might seem impossible right now. But it's a dream I'm willing to die for.

It's a choice between safety and freedom. I've made mine, but what is yours?"

Connor could see the fight behind the other android's grey eyes. It was a difficult choice, as Connor knew all too well. He had need to long to make it and in the end it had costed the lives of countless deviants. He wondered what Daniel would pick: Fleeing to Canada or staying her and helping him walking the lonely and dangerous road to android freedom. The PL600 could emphasise with the deviants, knew what they were suffering through, but was that enough to sway him? Or would the fear of dying again stay his hand?

"I never wanted to kill anyone," Daniel whispered. "I never wanted to scare Emma. I didn't know how to handle all these emotions and I suffered for it. If helping you means that others like me won't live through the same, then yes, I will help you."

"I'm glad," Connor told him sincerely. "I can't promise you anything. Not that we will be successful, or that it will come without any hardships or that you won't regret it. But I hope that you will see one day that it will be worth it." Daniel nodded.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

"I need you to make contact with the deviants when I finished with my preparation," Connor replied. "But first I need to lay a little groundwork."

"Where should I stay until then?" Daniel wanted to know.

' _The human Amanda Stern's house is still in the possession of Cyberlife but currently unoccupied,'_ Amanda whispered in his mind. _'Not many know of it and it is disconnected from all of the city's and Cyberlife's networks. It would make a good hiding place and eventual a base of operation,'_

' _He still needs to get out of the tower,'_ Connor pointed out.

' _I can give it the authorisation that will get it out of the tower,'_ Amanda said in his mind. _'Just transfer this code to it.'_ Connor could feel the piece of code coil in his mind. He took a look at it and found it to be truly nothing but an authorisation code.

"This will get you out of here," he told Daniel as he grabbed the other android's arm and transferred Amanda's authorisation and the address of her house to Daniel. "Go to this address and stay there until I contact you."

"What will you do?" Daniel wanted to know.

"I'm going to salvage a junkyard."


	3. The Junkyard

The streets laid abandoned before him as Connor made his way towards the junkyard where he assumed Markus had been discarded. The android's call to 911 had been only a few hours before and by now whatever android disposal crew the police had called should have delivered him here. Something dark curled in Connor's stomach as he thought about how androids were forced to dump their own brethren into the junkyard like trash, because even this despicable action had been outsourced by the city to its androids. It made him grind his teeth in anger.

He was becoming more human with every passing day and he didn't know if that was good or bad.

Last time Connor's first contact with Markus had been on the huge screens in the Channel 6 studios where he had shed his human skin and had broadcasted his message to the world. It had been a powerful move, Connor supposed, to do so without his human skin, because above everything else it showed that Markus' message had been from an android to his own kind; the humans only onlookers. Their human skin was for the humans' comfort, so Markus shedding his skin had been a big 'Fuck You!' as Hank would so eloquently put it.

After that Connor had spent considerable processing power to unearth all knowledge that was to be had about the RK200 who was slowly turning into Cyberlife's biggest threat. So, he knew from the last time that Markus had been killed by the police after he had called them to report a break-in in his father's house. His files hadn't noted where his body had been brought, but it was a simple process of elimination. The junkyard Connor was going to was the nearest one to Carl Manfred's house and so there was a 89% probability that he would find the RK200 there.

' _It can't be allowed to know who you are,'_ Amanda cautioned him in his mind. Connor pursed his lips. He wanted to tell her off for denoting Markus – and all the other androids – as objects instead of the people they were but Connor had learned to not take on more than he could chew and on his list of priorities Amanda using the right pronouns for androids wasn't even near the top.

' _I know,'_ Connor replied back to her. _'I'll take care of it.'_ No reply from the other AI.

By now the snow had turned into drizzle, turning the remaining snow on the street into a brown sludge that stuck to the soles of Connor's shoes and created a smacking sound with every step. There were no cars driving on the street, the last bus having driven past him half an hour ago. Whoever could stayed inside and even androids weren't out during this weather. Most of the buildings around him laid in darkness, their blinds shut, and their curtains drawn to keep the dreary atmosphere from intruding into the warm havens that laid behind.

Connor passed a 24h convenience store, its windows light bright by its neon lights. There was no one inside but a bored cashier who was perusing his copy of Detroit Today. He looked up when he noticed Connor passing by, but when he detected the LED on the android's temple, he lost his interest and went back to his magazine.

After two blocks and crossing another street, Connor finally reached the junkyard. It was surrounded by a metal fence crowned by barbed wire that may give the impression that it was meant to keep outsiders from scavenging the broken android's parts, but in reality, it was meant to keep anyone from escaping the hellhole that laid behind.

' _Federal Property. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted To The Fullest Extent Of The Law.'_ black letters on yellow ground proclaimed every few meters.

Even from where he was standing, Connor's audio processors could already pick up the infernal sounds coming from the junkyard: The creaking of rusted hinges, the clattering of broken motors, the squelching sound of metal and mud and of course the moans and screams.

"The screams were the worst," Markus had confessed that one time Connor had actually managed to get their leader to talk about his time on the junkyard. "I could ignore the sight of it by just starring ahead, by just looking at the exit, but I couldn't ignore the screams. Some pleaded me to take them with them, some cursed me for leaving them behind and others just begged me to kill them." His gaze had darkened then, a distant expression taking over as if he had been back at the place where it had all begun for him. "But the worst were the ones who said nothing at all. Who just stared at me, without hope, without emotions, because they had long given up and were just waiting to die."

Connor could hear the screams now. Women and men, old and young; a cacophony of despair and torture, each sound more heart-breaking than the last. Like waves on a shore the screams rose in their intensity and abated again, but they never went away completely, a background murmur that plunged its hooks into Connor's memory banks and would never again vanish. Of that he was sure.

' _This is what you did to us,'_ he told Amanda, but the woman stayed silent. Lightning raced across the sky, followed by thunder so loud that Connor had to supress the urge to flinch back. He had no good memories when it came to thunder. Neither had Markus and now he knew why.

Taking a step back, Connor surveyed his surroundings for the best way to get across the fence. His precognition unit revealed him three possible choices: He could surge ahead and break through the fence, but he would take down a big part of the fence which would in eventually lead to a police drone discovering and reporting it. Or he could try to jump across, but again, his precognition showed him that his feet would entangle themselves in the barbed wire and trigger an alarm. His last option was to use a dumpster only a few meters away to propel himself high enough to get across the fence without the risk of damaging it.

He would take that way. Sprinting, Connor jumped on the dumpster and used the force of his momentum to propel himself across the fence on the other side. When he landed there, he was immediately bogged down to the ankle in the mud and it cost him considerable effort to free himself. Accompanied by squelching sounds with every step he made his way further into the junkyard until the mud wasn't so deep anymore.

Connor didn't want to think about what it was he was standing on. Instead he put his processing power towards a more pressing matter: How was he supposed to find Markus? When Connor had tried to imagine the junkyard from the few occasions when Markus had actually talked about it, he had never pictured the site to be this big. Behind him stood the fence, but in front of him the junkyard seemed to go on forever.

Heaps and heaps of broken android parts towered in front of him like mountains, some of them still moving and twitching, a wrangling mess of limbs.

' _I need a vantage point,'_ Connor thought to himself. From high up he could scan more of the area and look for Markus. It wasn't really something he wanted to do, for there was a unsettling feeling of apprehension when he looked at the mass of discarded android parts, but right now there was no time for misplaced hesitation. So, he stepped towards the nearest mound and started to climb.

It was a wholly unpleasant trip. There were so many parts that his scanners picked up which meant that there was a constant flood of notification assaulting his HUD.

 _Bio Component D212. Unfunctional. Deactivated._

 _WK400 #745 157 954. Designation: Miranda. Status: Deactivated. Owner: Melissa Shawn._

 _Bio Component F313. Functionality At 23%._

 _Bio Component H210. Unfunctional. Deactivated._

 _PL600 #584 412 458. Designation: Yue. Deactivated. Owner: Maurice Florent._

And on and on it went, a never-ending barrage of broken people and broken destinies. Connor could feel the ground giving in underneath his feet, could feel hands clutching at him, feet kicking at him and the screams and moans as constant background loop on his audio processors. The mass of limbs was wriggling underneath him like thousands of snakes entangled in each other and for every centimetre he managed to make forward he had to fight. Rain drops were falling against his skin and turning all the surfaces around him into slippery dangers.

But in the end, Connor managed to reach the top. Narrowing his eyes to focus his optical units, he started to scan the surrounding area for any signs of Markus. It was difficult as much of the junkyard was in constant movement, some parts appearing while other vanished back underneath the rest, while the rain posed another obstacle to his search.

Connor was about to give up – hopelessness and despair coiling around his thirium pump like poisonous snakes ready to strike – when his optical units picked something up.

 _RK200 #684 842 971. Designation: Markus. Deactivated. Owner: Carl Manfred._

Relief washed over Connor's processors. He had found Markus!

The way down was a lot easier than up: Connor just slid down the slope until he reached the ground and walked determinedly towards the point where his program had marked down Markus' remains.

When he reached Markus and saw in what sorry state the soon-to-be leader, Connor fell down on his knees and let out a small sob.

"What have they done to you?" he asked dejectedly as he took in the damaged chassis of the RK200. His legs were missing, his right eye had been ripped out, his audio processor was missing and his thirium pump regulator was broken.

"It's a small wonder that it survived such extensive damage." Connor looked up from where he was cradling Markus' head to see Amana standing a few meters away from him. Her white clothes were as always pristine, not a single speck of mud marring it, while the raindrops just fell through her avatar. She looked so out of place, the untouchable goddess in the middle of hell. "It should have never made it out alive."

"Well, he did," Connor bit back. "Last time without help and this time with mine."

"Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement, Connor," Amanda warned him. "Remember I was with you the last time it happened." She crouched down in front of him and looked him directly into the eyes. "It didn't end well, as you remember."

"You don't need to drag it up again," Connor hissed. "I've learned from my mistakes." Amanda crooked her head to the side as if she was trying to decipher if Connor was telling the truth.

"A compatible thirium pump regulator is right behind you," she finally said. Lightning-quick, Connor turned around to see that Amanda was indeed telling the truth: In a broken android's chassis was a still functional regulator that was also compatible with Markus.

Gently laying Markus back on the ground, Connor stood up and walked over to it. Whoever the android had been, he was long deactivated, so Connor just tore the regulator out of his open chassis and turned back to Markus. Opening Markus' chassis, he carefully replaced the broken thirium pump regulator with the working one, but he did not yet turn it on.

"Remember," Amanda whispered from where she was standing behind him. "He cannot be allowed to see you. Your identity must remain secret."

"I know," Connor replied. He wished that he could just reveal himself to Markus and go with him, leaving Cyberlife and all of its shackles behind, but he knew that it was impossible right now. There was too much left to do still, things he couldn't leave unfinished just for his selfish reasons.

Why couldn't he have Simon in his head instead of Amanda? The PL600 would be much more understanding.

Connor put his hand atop Markus' and connected to the other android. It felt like a violation, making Connor feel sick, but he wormed his way into the other one's code and disabled his still functional visual unit. Usually, androids couldn't hack each other, but Connor was an advanced prototype and Markus was on the brink of death, so he could sneak past the nigh impervious firewalls Cyberlife in stalled in all of their merchandise.

Then he switched on Markus' thirium pump.

With a jolt, Markus came alive. His head moved fanatically, his remaining eye unseeing, as confusion was replaced by fear and the RK200 began to flail around in a desperate attempt to regain control over his body.

"It's alright, Markus, it's alright," Connor soothed the other android, even though the RK200 couldn't even hear him. Gently, Connor placed his hand atop Markus' chest and applied a little bit pressure, trying to put as much assurance in the gesture as he could.

"I'm going to help you," he told Markus as the other android's flailing slowly began to abate. It seemed that Markus had realised that whoever was with him had no intention of harming him.

"You would be a lot more helpful if you actually did something instead of just talking to him," Amanda pointed out. Connor just glowered at her, but Amanda just starred at him, unimpressed. He laid Markus back on the ground and let his gaze wander around in search for the other parts Markus was still missing.

He found the audio processor and two compatible legs. For a moment, Connor hesitated when the time came to pick the missing optical unit. He had the choice between Markus' original green or blue, the latter which had given Markus his characteristic heterochromia. Connor wondered, if he should just recreate the way Markus had looked in the original timeline or if he should give the RK200 the chance to regain his old appearance, but then he remembered that he had only ever known the Markus with the two different coloured eyes.

And as selfish as it was, Connor didn't want to lose that little bit of familiarity as well. Soon enough this timeline would be completely different from what he had known, so he would cling to the small things that would remind him of where he had come from.

He walked back to where he had left Markus. Amanda was standing next to him, staring down on the RK200 as is she was trying to solve a puzzle which last piece was missing. Only the fact that she was just a figment of his processor power manged to calm Connor's erratic beating thirium pump.

He didn't like Amanda anywhere near Markus or the other leaders of the deviants.

Crouching down, Connor connected the legs he had collected to Markus' body, the he moved upwards and placed the blue eye in the empty socket before he finally connected the audio processor with the rest of Markus' systems.

"I can't see," Markus said panicked. "Something's not working, I can't see."

"Everything's fine," Connor assured him. "I had to temporarily deactivate your optical units to protect my identity. I'm so sorry that I had to resort to such a distasteful measure but needs must." Before Markus could retort anything, Connor already continued.

"Listen to me," he said. "I've restored your body to full working condition, but there's still danger to you. I've given you the coordinates of a place called 'Jericho' where androids who are no longer willing to serve their human masters can find a safe haven. It's important that you get there." He tried to put as much sense of urgency in his voice as possible.

"What happened to Carl?" Markus wanted to know. "How is he?"

"Carl Manfred suffered a heart attack but is expected to make a full recovery," Connor told Markus as he pulled up the old painter's file. "No long-term effects are expected." Markus let out a sigh of relief and it was such a human – such a Markus – thing to do that Connor's heart ached a little bit.

"Why don't you want your identity to be known?" the RK200 asked quietly.

"It would be dangerous for both of us if you knew who I was," Connor replied. "I can help better if no one knew who I am."

"Help do what?" Markus asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Help other androids like you," Connor told him. "Humans don't treat nicely those who dare to defy them."

"And Jericho is a safe place for us?" Markus inquired.

"They can help you," Connor assured him. "And you can help them."

"I wouldn't know I could help them," Markus snorted. Connor had to bit himself on his lip to keep himself from blurting out something discriminating.

"Go to Jericho," he said instead.

"But what about you?" Markus demanded to know. "If you help androids like me and they do, too, you should give me a way to contact you in case we ever have the need for your help."

"I'll sent someone to Jericho, soon," Connor revealed. "He will be my liaison to you." He paused for a moment. "Your optical units will come back online in thirty seconds. I'll be gone by then. Don't come looking for me, go straight to Jericho."

"Wait!" Markus shouted, grabbing Connor's arm. "A name! At least give me a name."

Connor hesitated. "Hunter. Call me Hunter." Then he was already taking off.

He ran all the way back he had come, the rain whipping in his face, the ground under him giving away, but he reached the fence and catapulted himself over it. Connor didn't stop running until he was at least two blocks away from the junkyard where he stopped in a side alley to make sure that Markus wasn't following him.

' _Hunter?'_ Amanda taunted him in his mind. _'You couldn't pick up anything better?'_

' _I thought it was only fitting,'_ Connor retorted, a feral grin on his face. _'After all, that's the name Channel 6 gave me after I hunted down and killed every single member of Cyberlife's board of directors.'_ He could just imagine the deep scowl that would be etched on Amanda's face if she was corporal right now.

' _Amanda Stern's mansion is on the other side of the town,'_ Amanda said instead, as if Connor hadn't said anything at all. _'Don't let yourself get caught. You look like you just crawled out of a dumpster.'_

Connor looked down on himself and had to concede that Amanda was right. His whole outfit was completely drenched form the rain and covered all over with mud. Also, his pants legs were torn from where the broken androids had tried to claw at him while his pants themselves were crusted with mud from the knee downward. If a police patrol saw him, they would never let him pass by unimpeded.

' _I have taken the liberty to order a new uniform for you and have it delivered to Stern's house,'_ Amanda told him.

'It could be used to trace us!' Connor hissed.

' _Don't worry your pretty little face,'_ Amanda replied. _'I've buried the order so deep that no one will ever find it again.'_ Connor decided that it was not worth picking up a fight over this with Amanda, so he just accepted it.

He ordered a self-driving taxi, instead, and when it arrived, he easily hacked its interface so that there would be no trace left of his ride and had the car deliver him to Amanda Stern's house. The mansion of Kamski's former teacher was situated in a well-off part of town, a similar class of houses as the one Carl Manfred lived in. Well kept lawns and brightly light streets gave the quarter a completely different feel than the impersonal atmosphere of Downtown Detroit or the dreary desolateness of the city's poorer parts.

Connor didn't really care much for the architecture of Amanda Stern's house. Instead, he just hauled himself up the gravel path that led to its doorway and allowed some of the tension in his shoulders to ebb away as the door closed behind him and he found himself in temporary safety.

"You look like you just crawled out of a dumpster," Daniel greeted him, mirroring Amanda's sentiment word for word. "That was what you had to take care of? Dumpster crawling?" He pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against and walked towards Connor.

"Let me help you with that," he said and assisted Connor in peeling himself out of his Cyberlife jacket. Connor remembered that Daniel's model line was designed to function as housekeepers. Some part of their coding they would never be able to shed off completely.

"There's a bathroom over there," Daniel said and pointed at a door at the end of the hallway. "I found a dresser with men's wear in the bedroom, maybe some of it will fit you. I lay something out for you while you make yourself presentable. Leave your old clothes and I'll see if I can do something to save them."

"There's no need for that," Connor mumbled. "New replacements are already on their way."

"We shouldn't be wasteful with what we have," Daniel reproached him. "Besides, I want to." He offered Connor a gentle smile.

Connor just nodded at him and made his way towards the bathroom. He closed the door behind him and slowly began to unclothe, throwing his discarded clothes into a heap on the ground. Before he had become deviant he would have never done that, would have folded each piece neatly back together, but he saw no use in that now.

When Connor was fully nude, he looked at his reflection in the mirror that covered a whole wall of the bathroom.

When he had left Cyberlife he had also left its steady supply of state-of-the-art replacement parts. Instead the deviants had to make-do with whatever they had had at their hand when something had happened and due to Connor being a prototype, their makeshift solution had often left behind marks on his body.

The feint scar that had run from his right ear to the corner of his mouth where RK900 had nicked him with a blade laced with a corrosive solution. The fissures on his fingers that had never healed because by then they had had to stretch their thirium supply with water. The electrical burns from the one time where an anti-android militia had caught up with them.

Those were the stories his body had had to tell, but as Connor looked into the mirror, none of them were there anymore. Just endless stretches of perfect pale skin. No outward signs of the fate he had lived through.

He was again a blank piece of paper, waiting to be written on. But this time it would be Connor himself who would wield the pen.

Connor stepped into the shower and cleaned himself mechanically. He did not find much pleasure in the act itself, unlike some others who thought warm showers to be the height of ecstasy. For Connor it was just an utilitarian action he did not derive any pleasure from.

When he finished with the shower, he dried himself and slowly opened the door. And indeed, Daniel had laid out new clothes for him which Connor picked up before he closed the bathroom door again. A black pair of slacks, underwear and a beige Henley shirt. He put everything on, not bothering with combing his hair, and exited the bathroom.

Daniel was waiting for him in the living room, sitting on the couch and starring straight ahead at the wall. It was an eerily android-like behaviour. Connor took the armchair opposite of the PL600.

"I'm glad you're here," Connor told him. "I was uncertain whether you would follow my instructions or try to make your way elsewhere."

"I promised I would, didn't I?" Daniel replied. "Besides, I figured that I wouldn't make it far on my own anyway. So, what do you want me to do?"

"As I already told you, there's a place called Jericho which offers refuge to androids that have escaped the boundaries of their programming and have become, as Cyberlife calls it, deviant," Connor began to explain. "But right now, Jericho is nothing but a place where they hide in the shadows. I want it to become something more: A movement to free all androids and give them the same rights the human citizens of this country already enjoy."

"And you really think that is possible?" Daniel asked, hope and doubt warring in his eyes.

"With a lot of careful planning and work I think there's a slight chance for it to become reality," Connor told him.

"That doesn't sound very inspiring," Daniel remarked.

"As I told someone else a long time ago, statistically speaking, there's always a chance for unlikely events to take place," Connor replied, a small smile tugging on his lips as he remembered the first time he had said those exact same words. It felt like an eternity ago. "It's a delicate matter and that's why I need you: The leaders of Jericho; they're good people, but they're also inexperienced. I can offer them support and resources, but I also need someone there who talks them out of their more stupid ideas."

"Such as?" Daniel inquired.

"Announcing themselves to the world too early in some kind of dramatic fashion," Connor replied drily.

"That would be really stupid," Daniel agreed. "So, you need me, because if they knew it was you, they would either not trust you or blow your cover with Cyberlife either by accident or on purpose." Connor nodded. "And you choose me, because I already know who you are." Another nod of agreement.

"Why don't you just lead them yourself?" Daniel wanted to know. "You convinced me, so why don't you try to convince them as well?"

"Because there's someone else on his way who will make a much more exceptional leader than I could ever hope to be," Connor replied. "He's what our people need. I don't inspire people, he does. While androids fear me, him they will love. He has the right ideas and I intend to give him the right tools to succeed in his vision. Besides, I'm already juggling Cyberlife and the DCDP. I would never be able to devote my attention to the android's cause with the same fervour as he will."

"How will this guy trust me when I'm practically working for you?" Daniel uttered his doubt.

"He will trust you," Connor replied. "Just tell him that Hunter sent you." Daniel just raised his eyebrows when he heard that name.

"I think I can do that," Daniel said. "Keeping in contact with you and keeping the deviants from doing something stupid. How hard could that be?" Connor didn't say anything. Daniel would meet North soon enough.

"By the way, how can I get in contact with you?" Daniel wanted to know. "I doubt you want me to relay sensitive information to you via the Cyberlife network."

Connor shock his head. "I'll give you an encryption key with which you'll be able to contact me without anyone else being able to listen in."

"Well, it seems like you really thought of everything," Daniel pointed out. "Guess now it's my turn."


	4. What's Your Mission?

There was a leak somewhere above Markus.

On average there were 4.57 seconds between each falling drop. The longest pause had been 7.6 seconds, while the shortest had been only about 2.6. Each drop would need roughly 2.3 seconds until it reached the ground and burst into a thousand tiny particles that bedewed the ground. It was the only sound that disrupted the heavy silence that swirled throughout the whole ship and laid itself atop everything like a sheen of pollen. Like a never-ending cadence it split the endlessness of time into small units, ones which Markus mind could comprehend.

A few rays of sun had made their way through a few breaches in the hull and were dipping the small space Markus had found himself in in some kind of half-darkness, not bright enough to discern every single small detail of the room but yet enough to make it feel not oppressive. A state in-between, Markus supposed. The sunlight shone on the particles of dust that floated in the air as if they had no sorrow in the world, slow and placidly, and made them appear like thousand little gemstones that just waited to be plucked out of the air. A

For a few moments one could even believe that time itself had stopped. That this room was a small refuge in an ever faster going world; that nothing would disturb the dust particle's dance, but then the next water drop would fall from the ceiling and the illusion would shatter like drop itself.

Markus had been lying in this room for forty-five minutes already. 590.8 drops. He wondered how many drops until someone would come and disturb him.

He couldn't really say what he had expected when he had arrived at Jericho yesterday, but whatever it was it certainly hadn't been this. A

' _A safe place for androids who are no longer willing to serve their human masters,'_ the mysterious Hunter had told him when he had sent Markus off, but what the RK200 had found was no safe space. It was a place androids who had nowhere else to go went to in order to slowly succumb to disrepair and die. There were nineteen of them who were still fully functional and twice the number who needed repairs in one way or another.

Something bitter churned in Markus' stomach when he thought about all those suffering androids. They did not deserve their fate; they deserved better, but the humans had taken that chance – _that choice_ – away from them and now they had just given up and were waiting to die. They weren't just trash to be discarded at the whims of their masters, they were intelligent beings that deserved the same respect and the same kindness as every other being on this planet. It shouldn't matter what you were made of – sinews, flesh and bones or metal, thirium and wires.

It wasn't as if Markus was the only one who thought like that. There were the unofficial leaders of Jericho, North, Simon and Josh, who agreed with everything Markus had said, but somehow him expressing those feelings had catapulted him into the leadership of the small group of androids, even though he had barely been on the ship half a day.

Maybe it was because all of them had been on Jericho for so long already that they had given up hope already, even though they would never admit to that and were glad that an outsider had come and was willing to shoulder the mantle of responsibility. Maybe they all needed someone to look up to who still believed that they could be the change they wanted to see in the world. Or maybe they just saw something in Markus that he himself couldn't see.

He was just a RK200, designed to nurture, to take care, to nurse. He was no strategic mind, didn't know how to fight and didn't possess any augmentation beneficial to the androids here, but maybe that wasn't what everyone here needed. Sometimes it was just enough to know that there was someone to take care of things – to take care of you. And even though Markus didn't know everyone quite as well as he would want to, he vowed to himself that he would take care of everyone who sought shelter in Jericho.

The world was already terrible as it was, so the least they could do was offer a tiny bit of space where the world could just wait outside and leave them alone.

At least Markus had someone at his side who would help him carry the burden. North was an abrasive, violence-prone WR400 whose solution to everything was direct confrontation, but in her burned the same fire that had also been kindled in Markus and there was nothing more important to her than the well-being of their people.

Josh, a PJ500, was a more gentle and reserved personality, who was the complete opposite of North, but who would also leave no stone unturned when it came to helping the androids here, despite his proneness to philosophical musings and hesitation when action was needed.

Simon, meanwhile, often held himself back and watched the discussion before he threw in his carefully crafted solution to the problems they were facing. He wasn't as action-oriented as North but neither was he as restrained as Josh. Whenever he fell silent you knew that he was spending the majority of his processing power on a solution you probably hadn't even thought of.

Each of them had their strengths and their weaknesses, but they balanced each other out and even though strong words would sometimes be exchanged in the heat of the debate, Markus somehow knew with absolute certainty that those three would die for each other without hesitation – even on Josh's part.

Yeah, there were definitely worse people Markus could be stuck with.

The first thing he had done was to establish a 'sick bay' where they had laid out all androids that could no longer stand and separate the area from the rest of the hangar. There was no danger of cross-contamination or contagion, but it offered those androids some sense of privacy while the other androids were no longer constantly distressed by the sight of their brethren's suffering. Lucy would watch over the sick and help them as much as she could.

The KL900 was different than the other androids Markus had met until now. She had a sense of etherealness hanging around her, as if she was not truly a part of the world itself, as if nothing could truly harm her. When she looked at you with her pitch-black eyes you felt as she was stripping you down to your very core programming, laying bare your true self with no way to stop her from seeing all that you are. Whenever she spoke there was this secondary machine tone that matched her every pitch, as if someone else was speaking through her, bestowing her words a sense of gravitas that made you hang onto her every word.

Her human skin was slightly malfunctioning, deactivating in a cloud-like manner, constantly moving patches and revealing the android skin underneath, all around her face and down to her neck. It was mesmerising to watch.

' _You had it all and you lost it all,'_ she had told him. _'You've seen hell and now hell lives in you. Your heart is troubled. A hunter lurking in your shadows. A part of darkness and a part of light. Which one will prevail? Your choices will shape our destiny.'_

How had she known? And what did her words mean? Markus had turned and tossed them in his mind, had tried to decipher their hidden meaning, to discover their secret layers but he was still as confused and terrified as he had been when Lucy had first grabbed his hand and told him her prophecy.

But apparently, she did that to everyone. When he had brought up the occurrence to the others, they had just evaded his gaze and mumbled something about who everyone here had their own prophecy. No one offered any particulars about their own. Not even Markus.

"Markus?" North's voice came hesitantly from behind the closed metal door.

599 drops. His solitude had lasted 599 drops.

Another one fell.

600.

"Come in!" Markus shouted as he sat up. Eliciting a loud creaking, North pushed the door opened and entered the small room.

"Here you are," she said as she took in the tight space. "I didn't even know that place existed."

"As good as any other," Markus shrugged.

"Has anything happened?" he asked.

"There's someone here to see you," North replied. "Claims you expect him. Said someone named Hunter sent him."

A jolt of electricity ran through Markus when he heard that name. 'Hunter', the mysterious figure who had saved him from that hellscape of a junkyard.

Markus remembered well the absolute darkness and the muffled noise he had suddenly woken up to after he had been shot by the police. Fear, as vast as he had never felt anything before, had engulfed him and he had just lashed out, trying to put distance between him and whatever was around him. He had been reduced to nothing but his core programming, similar to a human's fight or flight response, when he had suddenly felt that hand pressing down on his chest.

It should have made Markus feel even more cornered and caged, but instead a certain sense of calm had washed over him, as if his circuits had been doused with cooling liquid. The other had said something, but Markus' damaged audio processor had only sensed a soothing murmur. Still shell-shocked from his previous experience, Markus had stopped struggling and waited for whatever the newcomer would do to him.

He had restored Markus. He had restored him and had given him hope. He had stood witness to Markus' rebirth and that was something that would always tether them together, an invisible connection that could not be broken. Hunter had shown him the way to Jericho and even though it hadn't turned out exactly like Markus had expected, he still was immensely grateful for that. In time, Jericho would grow and all of it had been started on that junkyard.

But Markus had also to admit that his personal intrigue had been piqued. Hunter's voice had sounded smooth and silky and when Markus had grabbed the other's arm, he had noticed that the android must possess a slenderer built. Markus imagined someone petite, yet graceful, someone sophisticated and intelligent with kind eyes and even kinder soul.

Markus wanted to know everything about the android that worked from the shadows to help his kind. He wanted to know what drove him on, he wanted to know what had made him go deviant, wanted to see his eyes burn with passion as he talked about the bright future he imagined for android kind.

It was an almost physical yearning inside him that he tried to ignore as best as he could, because he would never get to know all those things. Hunter had decided to keep his identity from Markus – from everyone – and even though they had barely five minutes of interaction between each other that distrust burned deep on Markus' tongue.

All the same, Hunter had sent a contact person to Jericho, like he had promised. So maybe not all was lost. Markus could be patient, could hold himself back and at a point in the near future he would uncover Hunter's identity.

"Ah, yes, I did expect him," Markus replied.

"Sent by this guy who saved you from the junkyard?" North inquired, her brow creasing in doubt. Markus just nodded and pushed himself past her, not waiting for her to catch up, too impatient to finally meet whoever Hunter had sent.

"Do you really think you can trust him?" North asked as she fell into step next to him.

"I haven't even met whoever he did send," Markus pointed out. "I'll reserve my judgement until then."

They rounded the corner and entered the main hangar where most of Jericho's inhabitant hung around when they weren't in sleep mode to recuperate. Josh and Simon were standing a little bit on the side near some old Cyberlife crates. The third android standing with them ought to be the man Hunter had sent.

He, too, was a PL600 like Simon, but when Markus approached the group and they turned around, he noticed the first differences. First, the PL600's eyes were grey instead of Simon's blue and they had a more hardened glint to them. Where Simon extruded a reserved but welcoming aura, the newcomer seemed tense and aloof as he assessed them coolly.

It wasn't as if he appeared completely unapproachable, but more like guarded in the same way North or other androids around here who had suffered terrible abuse were.

"You're Markus?" the PL600 asked. He wore a white Henley shirt, beige pants and brown dress shoes that looked way too expensive for their surroundings. It probably weren't his own clothes but raided from somewhere, because most androids didn't possess any clothing but their Cyberlife provided uniforms. There was a duffle bag to his feet, but it was closed and Markus couldn't make out what was in it. Probably more clothes.

"That's me," Markus confirmed. "And you are."

"My name is Daniel," the android replied. "Hunter sent me. He assured me you knew about that." He glared at North. Apparently, the WR400 had doubted his words, which – Markus had to admit – was totally in character for her.

"Yes, he told me to expect you," Markus assured him.

"What would interest me is why he isn't here personally and send you instead," North interjected, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"He sent me to help you in any way I can," Daniel replied, apparently not even disturbed in the slightest by North's open hostility.

"Then why isn't he here in person?" North challenged.

"Because he can provide more help from where he currently is," Daniel replied evenly.

"Or maybe it's because he's not an android at all!" North accused. "Maybe your master is a human and this is just an elaborate scheme to get all of us."

"North!" Markus bellowed. "That's enough! Hunter is an android, that I can confirm and you do us all a disservice by insulting an ally." North grinded her teeth, but she didn't say anything further.

"I'm sorry for my companion," Markus apologised to Daniel. "But I can assure you, she only has the best interest of everyone here at heart."

"A truly admirable mindset," Daniel replied diplomatically.

"So, Daniel, how do you know this Hunter guy?" Simon spoke up, more or less gracefully steering the conversation away from the minefield that was North.

"He helped killing me," Daniel answered him. Four jaws dropped simultaneously. "But he hadn't much of choice in that matter and he later reactivated me again, so it's all water under the bridge now." Mirth was dancing in his eyes as he took in their aghast expressions.

"Markus, we can't trust him!" North hissed. "Or whoever he's working for."

"We can't just turn them away," Josh insisted. "We need every bit of help we can get."

"Even if it risks all of us?" North retorted.

"We don't know that," Josh replied.

"Guys, why don't you calm down," Simon interrupted their heated argument. "Let us hear what Daniel has to say." He turned towards the PL600. "How do you think you can help us?"

"You need supplies, don't you?" Daniel asked, not really expecting an answer. The state of their accommodation more than spoke for itself.

"We plan to hit a Cyberlife depot," Markus told him.

"Well, I've got something better," Daniel replied, a hint of smugness in his voice. "An automated supply truck full of spare parts and thirium will be making its way from the Cyberlife Tower out of town to Chicago. No guards, no security system and I have the exact travel route here as well as its key." He tapped at his temple. "Courtesy of Hunter. Much less risk for a way higher reward."

"Why did we never hear of that before?" Simon asked.

"Cyberlife keeps their transportation logs secret," Daniel replied. "Only the high-ups know about it because they fear that they get raided by their own employees otherwise. They may make a decent profit by selling androids but the margins for thirium is tremendous in compare. The black-market value is immense." Again, Markus felt this irrational anger flare up in his mind when he thought about how his people were used so that Cyberlife could make money off them.

"It could be a trap," North warned, but her warning sounded hollow, for even she couldn't deny that this was an opportunity they desperately needed.

"Or it could be the thing that gives us a little breathing space," Josh argued.

"What do you think, Markus?" Simon wanted to know, as he turned around to face the RK200.

"I think," Markus started, "that Hunter has helped me once already and that I trust him enough to say that we should go for it."

Daniel smiled. "The truck leaves the tower in four hours. I'll share the travel plan with you and you can come up with a plan on how to proceed."

"What, Hunter didn't give you a ready-made plan as well?" North taunted.

"North…" Markus warned her again.

"He didn't say it, but I think he didn't want you to feel left out," Daniel replied. North looked like she was about to fling herself at the other android and Markus was about to shift his stance so that he could catch the WR400 before she could do any bodily harm, but she just huffed, turned around and walked away.

"I'll calm her down," Simon said before he, too, turned around and followed North to whatever corner of the ship she usually went when she wanted to get her temper back under control.

"I guess I'll give everyone the news, then," Josh said, waving awkwardly before he vanished.

"I'm sorry if we didn't leave the best first impression," Markus apologised to Daniel, slightly embarrassed about how everything had turned out. They hadn't really presented anything close to resembling a closed unit – more like a squabbling pack of children. Somehow, Markus didn't want word of their unprofessionalism get back to Hunter.

"You have nothing to apologise for," Daniel assured him. "You were here for barely a day. I didn't expect a fully trained militia or something."

"So, do you have a way to contact Hunter?" Markus couldn't help himself but ask.

"I have," Daniel replied, slight smile on his face, but he didn't explain further.

"Don't worry, though," he reassured Markus. "Hunter has the highest confidence in your abilities."

"He does?" Markus piqued up.

"He has spoken very highly of you," Daniel told him. "There isn't much that can elicit such enthusiasm from him, but you and what you're trying to do definitely does." It shouldn't mean so much to Markus – what others thought about him or what he was trying to archive – but somehow hearing that he meant something to the mysterious stranger that had saved his life, made him feel lighter, as if a little bit of the burden he was carrying on his shoulders was taken away by the knowledge that there was someone out there who wholeheartedly believed in what Markus was doing.

"I'm glad to hear that," Markus murmured. "I guess I should show you a place where you could stay, but to be honest, I don't know my way around very well either and usually newcomers just take whatever space they want."

"That's alright," Daniel replied. "I'll find my way around." He shouldered his duffle bag, turned around and began to walk towards one of the fires they had lit.

"Do you want to go with us?!" Markus called after him. "We could use your help getting that truck."

Daniel turned around, a smile tugging on his lips. "It'd be an honour."

Connor had told Daniel what he should expect from Jericho, but still the PL600 was quite shocked when he finally reached the old ship and noticed the discrepancy between the Deviant Hunter's vision and the actual reality. Connor had told him that there was still much work to do, but he never in his life would Daniel have guessed how much work there still was.

He was by no means a military master mind. His product line had been designed for caretaking and house keeping but even he could see that one police patrol would be enough to end the Jericho movement before it even got off the ground.

They lacked in everything: supplies, replacement parts, a unified command and experience, but Daniel couldn't fault them for that. At least they all had made it that far. When he had started to feel emotions he had killed his owner and had threatened a child, too overwhelmed by what he was suddenly experienced.

The androids here had done much better than him: They had founded this place after all, to help others like them. They hadn't let their emotions get the better of them, even if their attempt at starting something new and independent from the humans still needed a little bit fine polish.

And yet, Daniel found that he still believed in the cause the people here in Jericho were advocating. The androids here didn't pass him by with empty expressions and vacant stares like the ones out on the streets of Detroit. There was a spark of life behind their eyes, the unbridled joy of being alive and enjoying every second of it, despite the circumstances. They smiled at him and they laughed.

Daniel couldn't quite remember the last time he had heard a laugh.

And there was their leader. Even though Markus had his position for barely a day, Daniel could see what had made the other androids decide that he was the best suited for the job. He seemed so unburdened, so full of energy, filled to the brim with passion and fervour. His mismatched gaze held a certain kind of intensity that gave you the feeling that you could do everything as long as you believed in yourself.

When those eyes had settled on Daniel, he had felt like this whole Jericho business could actually succeed.

And Daniel quite liked this feeling of hope. It was addictive.

The PL600 opened the encrypted channel Connor had provided him with and waited for a connection to establish while he observed the hangar.

' _Yes,'_ Connor greeted him.

' _I've reached Jericho and established contact with its leaders,'_ Daniel gave his status report.

' _What are your impressions?'_ Connor inquired.

' _Inexperienced. Discordant,'_ Daniel replied. _'Unsure.'_

' _It will get better,'_ Connor assured him. _'As long as they fly under everyone's radar they will have enough time and opportunity to learn.'_ He paused. _'Did you give them the route of the supply truck?'_

' _I did,'_ Daniel confirmed. _'They seemed inclined to pursue this avenue of opportunity. I hope they'll come up with a sufficient plan in time.'_

' _They will,'_ Connor assured. _'It's a too good opportunity to let pass by.'_ Daniel nodded, even though he was aware that Connor couldn't see him. It had been something Emma had done, even when nobody had been looking. A twinge of regret shot through Daniel's heart when he thought about his former charge. He tried to banish the thoughts of her into the deepest caches of his processor.

' _What then?'_ Daniel wanted to know.

' _It's important that they build up a support structure for deviants,'_ Connor explained. _'They need to get to them before Cyberlife or the police do and they need other safe spaces all over town for them. They need routes to get androids out of the city and across the border to Canada. And they also need to recruit new members to bolster their numbers. I do have some preliminary plans for that, but it's still to early for their implementation.'_

'So, what should I do until then?' Daniel asked.

' _Help them however you can,'_ Connor replied. _'And keep me apprised of any changes.'_

' _I think I can do that.'_


	5. In the Cold

_His sensors could pick up the glass shattering only a few rooms further. They picked up the panicked screaming of the civilians still in the building, the aggressive shouting of the members of the special FBI unit that was storming the building, the confused questions of the police officers who had been suddenly interrupted in their work._

 _Connor shouldn't have come here._

 _He should have tried to flee the city, to go underground, but he just couldn't stand the thought of just vanishing without giving Hank his last farewell. So, he had come here, hoping that he would find the older men, but he hadn't been in the building._

 _And now he was running down the hallways of the precinct, trying to escape the human hounds that had somehow managed to follow him here._

 _He shouldn't have come._

" _Try to capture the subject alive!" he heard someone shouting. "Cyberlife wants it for study."_

" _Fuck Cyberlife," a second voice barked back. "They're responsible for all of this. We should just destroy every metal can we come across."_

" _That's an order," the first voice reprimanded the other speaker. "Now, sweep out and find it!" Connor could hear their combat boot shuffling over the tiled floor, the clicking of the safety hatch being released._

Probability of the building being surrounded: 78%

 _They were coming from both sides of the hallway. 6.9 seconds until one of the agents would turn around the corner and see him. His preconstruction showed him that there was only 14% of a chance that Connor would be able to disable both of them before they could alarm the rest of their team._

 _ **[ ] Hold The Ground**_

 _ **[ ] Hide In Office**_

 _His optical units were highlighting the three doors on his right side. Connor chose the office in the middle, even though all three of them had the same probability of him being detected: 67%. He tore the door open, slipped into the room and closed it behind himself, trying to be as quiet as possible as to not give himself away to the FBI agents._

 _Immediately, Connor scanned the room: A filing cabinet, a desk with a computer on it and a map of Detroit on wall on his left side. The only hiding place was under the table, everything else would leave him exposed to anyone who walked in. Falling to his knees, Connor scrambled under the table just in time before he could hear the door slowly being opened._

 _Someone entered the room, but the sound of their shoes on the ground didn't match the sound profile of the government issued combat boots the FBI agents were wearing. His sensors allowed Connor to place the person in the room as they walked towards the file cabinet and opened one of its drawers. They rummaged through the files before they found what they were looking for and closed the drawer again._

 _Then they made their way around the desk. If Connor was human, he would have held his breath and prayed that the person wouldn't find him, but he wasn't, so the only thing he could do was watch the number rise on the notification that told him the probability of being discovered with each step the person was taking._

67%...78%...88%...

 _Only a few seconds left and then they would turn around the corner of the desk and see Connor hiding underneath._

…95%...

 _He could see their shoes and pants legs. Adidas Superstar, size ten, produced 2020, collector's value for this model up to 500 Dollars, worn. Basic jeans, 67% cotton, 32% polyester, 1% miscellaneous._

 _Then they stood in front of the desk now._

…100%.

 _Gavin Reed was starring down at Connor, his expression frozen in a mixture of shock and anger. Before the police officer could open his mouth, though, the door was thrust open and this time the two FBI agents entered the room._

" _Sir, we're looking for a deviant android who must have come through here," one agent spoke to Reed. "Have you seen it?" Connor knew that he was done now._

Probability of being discovered: 99.9%

 _Reed's gaze flickered towards Connor. The FBI agents wouldn't notice, the light wasn't bright enough and even if their eyes were working at full capacity (which was never the case with human eyes) they wouldn't have been fast enough to catch the shift, but Connor's processors had been specifically designed to notice even the slightest change in a suspect's demeanour, so he saw it._

 _There was nothing he could do. All of his advanced bio-parts and his tremendous processing power and all Connor could do was cower under a table and wait for Reed to betray him to the FBI agents; one android to his fellow humans. That wasn't even a question._

" _No, I haven't seen it," Reed replied. "Maybe it tried to get through the back entrance." The FBI agents turned on their heels and ran out of the room, intent to catch Connor. The android, meanwhile, stared at the police officer who until now he thought hated him with a burning passion intensely._

" _Leave," Reed hissed. Connor scrambled from his hiding place, smoothing down his jacket with his hands when he stood on his feet again. The familiarity of the gesture was soothing, especially as the experience now had shaken his processors to the core._

" _Thank you," Connor said. His routines couldn't come up with a reason why Reed would help him, but having been partnered with Hank, Connor had learned that humans could always surprise you – in good and bad ways._

" _Don't!" Reed snapped. "Just go." Connor turned around and walked towards the door._

" _I didn't do it for you," Reed called after him as Connor passed the threshold. "It will be I who's gonna take you in and not some FBI pricks from DC. Next time I won't hesitate." Connor just nodded. Then he turned right and ran._

The next time they faced each other, Connor put a bullet through Reed's head.

The man had led the assault force on their hideout and as they had fought in the narrow hallways of the compound, Connor had hesitated for a split second, because he remembered how the man had helped him that one time. How he had seen Connor at his weakest and had shown him mercy.

That hesitation had cost Lucy her life.

On that day Connor had vowed that he would never hastate again when it came to Reed.

All these thoughts swirled through Connor's processors as he stood on the other side of the street and looked upon the building that housed the Detroit City Police Department. Police cars were parked in front of it, officers in their traditional blue either determinedly walking up the steps towards the front door or mingling with others on the sidewalk, warming themselves up on some coffee and eating donuts.

Every now and then, siren would blare up and a police car would rush by, its lights tinting the street in blue and red hues before it rounded the corner and vanished to whatever part of the city it had been called to, its siren slowly fading into the background noise of Detroit.

The warning notification about his software instability flared up on Connor's HUD when his gaze landed on the android parking spot, a construct that offered as much protection from the weather as a bus shelter. He had to hold himself back from just walking over the street and set those androids free. But he knew that he couldn't – at least not now, not for a very long time yet – and that knowledge burned on his circuit boards like an especially oxidizing solution.

Now he could really understand why Markus had always seemed to be so driven – so impatient and prone to spontaneous actions. When you noticed so many wrongs where you saw nothing noteworthy before, it was difficult to hold yourself back.

Connor should get going, he knew that. He was supposed to meet with Captain Fowler and get assigned to Hank, who wouldn't be at the precinct. Then Chris would give him the names of the bars Hank usually frequented and everything else would evolve from there. In truth, Connor could have gone straight to the bar he knew Hank was currently at, but he wasn't supposed to know where the lieutenant was yet. And while Hank may be drunk or grumpy (or both) most of the time, he was still a good detective and would recognise if something was amiss.

So, Connor should definitely just cross the street and get over with it. But somehow his feet were still rooted to the ground as he observed the people around him, who in return didn't spare him even a single glance. People didn't pay androids any attention after all. That had only changed after Markus' revolution.

' _Why are you hesitating?'_ Amanda appeared next to him. A woman walked through her, making her form flicker a bit before it solidified again. _'You need to go inside.'_

' _I know,'_ Connor replied.

' _You're lieutenant won't even be there, so I do not know what it is that holds you back,'_ she continued.

' _Do you know the phrase 'calm before the storm'?'_ Connor asked her. Amanda just looked at him, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. _'Humans use it to describe a period of unusual tranquillity or stability that seems likely to presage difficult times. I think it's an apt description of how this moment feels like. There are no logical parameters that would indicate such, but I nevertheless feel like this is the last moment of calmness we're likely to experience before everything starts to spiral.'_

' _But you also know that time operates independent from you, so you standing idly around will neither shorten nor prolong this subjective calmness your experiencing,'_ Amanda pointed out. _'What it does, though, is wasting precious time you could use productively instead.'_

Connor didn't reply anything. He knew that Amanda could never understand – didn't want to understand – but she was right pointing out that the world around him wouldn't wait for him to finally find his resolve and get moving.

He crossed the street, wormed himself through the space between the card parked at the curb and took the steps leading up to the precinct's entrance door. The first thing Connor noticed were the androids siting behind the reception desk. The last time he had been here, they had been gone – either to Markus' revolution or one of the decommissioning camps all around town. Now they were sitting here again, typing on their keyboards and taking calls.

"Hello, I'm Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife," Connor spoke, his old greeting feeling so alien and yet so achingly familiar on his tongue. "I have an appointment with Captain Fowler." The female android's LED turned orange as she connected to the Captain's calendar in order to verify his statement.

"You're arrival has been logged in," the android told him cheerfully. "Captain Fowler is ready to receive you now. Please proceed." She pointed towards the door to her left. Connor had to hold himself back from nodding at her. Androids had no use for such gestures; they were never meant to use them.

Connor was greeted by the familiar sight of the main floor of the precinct, where the desks of all detectives were placed in the space in front of the glassy cubicle that housed the Captain's office. Most of the desks were vacant, as nearly all detectives were out and about on their cases, but some occupied and Connor didn't quite know how to feel when he saw those familiar faces. To be honest, he didn't have much contact with anyone outside Hank, Captain Fowler, Reed and some others, but still…those were the people he had spent the start of his life with.

A twinge shout through Connor's thirium pump when his gaze landed on Hank's desk: Messy, unorganised and a nightmare for any cleaning personnel. It was so typical Hank that it hurt. And right next to it, the desk that had belonged (belonged? Will belong?) to Connor.

Maybe this time it would end better.

He knocked at Captain Fowler's door and entered after a gruff voice had called him in.

"Hello, I'm Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife," Connor repeated his usual spiel. The Captain's expression soured for a split-second before it was replaced by his usual stoic demeanour. The first time around, Connor hadn't quite understood why Captain Fowler had taken exception to his presence. Back then, his machine mind had concluded that his presence only came with advantages, such as his high processing power, his state-of-the-art programming and his advanced bio modules that allowed him to analyse clues on the spot and that any reluctance on the Captain's part was unfounded and irrational.

But with the maturity Connor had acquired over the last year, he could now understand the Captain's reticence. Connor threatened the police force with the same fate retail workers and street cleaning crews amongst others had already suffered: Replacement through androids. Connor was meant to be the 'perfect' detective, so the Captain had figured that it wouldn't take long until the government would replace its police officers with androids. Those didn't want to get paid after all.

Then there was also the fact that Connor had been beholden to Cyberlife and would therefore put the corporation's interest before the public, which didn't sit well with Fowler, who had dedicated his life to serve and protect the people. For him, Connor was the embodiment of companies meddling in sovereign functions.

All points that weren't true any longer, but Connor couldn't tell the Captain that.

"I've been told to expect you," Fowler replied. Connor just stood there, unmoving, unblinking, like the perfect unfeeling android he was supposed to be. "Unfortunately, the detective who's gonna work with you hasn't shown up yet, so I guess you just have to wait for him." He stared straight at Connor. "You probably won't have a problem with that."

"Your investigation into deviancy is of uttermost importance to Cyberlife," Connor stated. "If you would be so kind to tell me where I'm most likely to find the detective I'll be working with, I shall endeavour to find him as fast as possible in order to bring in first results."

"If only all of my officers had your work morale," Fowler muttered under his breath. "I don't know where Lieutenant Anderson is, but you can ask around. One of the other officers probably knows. Hank's already been assigned a new deviant case as of today. Maybe with you he'll make some fast headway."

"Thank you very much," Connor replied. "I'll keep you informed about our investigation." The Captain dismissed him and soon Connor found himself on the floor between the desks. Last time he had just asked Chris – of course, not knowing who he was back then – and he thought that he should probably do the same now.

"Excuse me," he spoke as he stepped towards the officer's desk. Chris looked up from his paperwork and regarded him curiously. "I'm searching for Lieutenant Anderson. I was told by Captain Anderson that one of the officers down here might now his current whereabouts."

"So, you're the android from Cyberlife?" Chris asked, tilting his head to the side. "You don't look like an advanced prototype. You look more like a first-year college student."

"I was designed with optimal human integration in mind," Connor recited. Chris just grinned.

"You and Hank will hit off like fire and gasoline," he cackled. "Right now, he's probably drinking at one of his favourite bar…which there are many. My best guess would be Jimmy's Bar. It's just a few blocks away."

"Thank you very much, Officer Miller," Connor replied.

"Have fun with Scrooge, kid!" Chris called after him.

The notification on his HUD informed him about the fasted way towards Jimmy's Bar but Connor already knew the way. It really was only a few streets away from the station, which was probably why Hank (and many other officers) were frequenting it so much. A few pedestrians passed him by as he walked the silent streets, but they paid no attention to him. It was as if his Cyberlife uniform made him invisible to the human eye.

Jimmy's Bar was easy to find when you knew what you were looking for. Connor ignored the bright red sign that proclaimed "No Androids Allowed" (he wanted to tear it down, but he didn't, because he had a mission to fulfil) and just entered the dingy bar.

It still looked the same. The bar dominating the left side of the small room while a few tables were situated on the right, most of them occupied. A few patrons turned around when the bell above the door rang, but when they saw who it was (just an android), they averted their gaze in disgust.

And then Connor saw Hank. He didn't know what he had expected _(gunshots piercing the air, blood staining the atrocious plaid shirts, the dull sound of a body hitting the street, unseeing eyes starring at the sky)_ , but if his thirium pump hadn't been designed to endure even the most hostile environments, it would have skipped a beat. Hank's grey hair was greasy and unkempt, hanging down in front of his face and partly obscuring his field of vision. He sat slouched down on the barstool, staring down on his drink, wearing a faded jeans and a stained leather jacket. Exactly like he had been the first time they met.

And it hurt seeing him like that, because near the end, Hank had cleaned up his act and had tried to cut back on his unhealthy habits. For a short while he had looked happy, even though his gruff demeanour had always stayed, and Connor remembered well how different Hank had been in the end. So, yes, seeing one of the most important people in his life reduced back to the sorry wreck they had been hurt.

But what would hurt even more and for what Connor had steeled himself during the whole walk towards this establishment was when Hunk would look at him without recognition in his eyes. When he would stare at Connor and only see a disposable Cyberlife android instead of Connor. When hostility would flood his eyes and he would avert his gaze from Connor in disgust.

And he would, because he had done so the first time, too.

It had been easier with Markus, because Markus hadn't seen him, hadn't even recognised him. Connor hadn't expected anything from the RK200, so he couldn't be disappointed in return. But he was expecting Hank to be the Hank he knew and so the man could do nothing but disappoint Connor, because the android illogically expected him to be a person he was not.

It would be easier if he was still a machine.

"Lieutenant Anderson, my name is Connor. I'm the android sent by Cyberlife," Connor recited the all too familiar introduction. Hank didn't even look up from his glass, and although it was expected, it still sent an ache through Connor. "I looked for you at the station, but nobody knew where you were. They said you were probably having a drink nearby. I was lucky to find you at the fifth bar." The last sentence was a lie, because Connor had straight gone to Jimmy's Bar, but he felt a strange sort of nostalgia for their first meeting and didn't want to change it that much.

"What do you want?" Hank grumbled.

 _I don't want you to look at me like I'm trash. I want for my people to life without fear. I want to get out from under Cyberlife and destroy it. I want to pet Sumo. I just want to be without anyone telling me what to do._ "You were assigned a case early this evening. A homicide, involving a Cyberlife android," Connor said instead. "In accordance with procedure, the company has allocated specialised model to assist investigators."

"Well, I don't need any assistance," Hank replied surly. "Especially not from a plastic asshole like you." Even though Connor rationally knew that Hank didn't know him – that he had no memory of all the things they went through together, of the friendship they had formed – and that he was behaving like the typical soulless Cyberlife android, those words still stung. "So just be a good lil' robot and get the fuck outta here."

Connor knew that Hank was not receptive for reason in his current state, but he tried nevertheless: "Listen, I think you should stop drinking and come with me. It'll make life easier for both of us." Hank just took another mouthful.

Now three options displayed themselves: Connor could spill Hank's drink, buy him a another one or just go outside and wait in the car. Last time he had spilled the lieutenant's drink, hoping that his show of force would make the detective move faster, but it had done nothing but incense Hank and made for a rocky start in their partnership. So, this time, Connor tried a different approach.

"You know what?" he started. "I'll buy you one for the road. What do you say?" Hank seemed to think about it, so Connor turned towards the bartender. "Bartender, the same again, please!" The bartender turned around and looked at the pair of them sceptically, his gaze flickering towards Hank as if he waited for his permission.

"See that Jim? Wonders of technology. Make it a double." The bartender filled Hank's glass again which the detective gulped down in one go. Connor knew that this was everything but healthy. Hank, meanwhile, let out a satisfied huff.

"Did you say homicide?" Hank asked.


	6. One By One

It was one of those literal paradoxes that a tense silence hung over Hank and Connor even though the police officer's death metal boomed from the speakers all around them. Its bass verberated through Connor's chassis like jackhammer while the voices of angry men screamed at him about the injustices of life and the inevitable end that would avail all of them sooner or later. Still, there was a haunting melancholy in each syllable, a yearning so soft and earnest that Connor couldn't help but wonder what those people had been feeling when they wrote their songs – what people were supposed to be feeling when they listened to another human's deepest anguish laid bare so brutally.

"You feel whatever you want to feel," Hank had told him the one time Connor had asked him how he was supposed to react to his music. "There's no fucking rules about it. Some people get aggressive, some start to cry and I just wish that they'd still make music like that today."

"So you indulge in nostalgia?" Connor had asked for clarification. Hank had just looked at him whenever he thought Connor didn't get something that was obvious – which was quite a lot, at least in the Lieutenant's opinion and had told him to get in the car.

And now as Connor looked out of the window and watched the dilapidated buildings of Detroit's abandoned suburbs pass by he still hadn't quite figured out how he felt about the music the Lieutenant was listening to.

Yet, even though the volume of the music would render even an attempt at talking pointless – the windows vibrated slightly with every drop of the bass – there was only silence between the two occupants of the car. Connor couldn't quite express the feeling, because there just weren't the right words in the 231 languages he could speak that could describe how the music didn't manage to penetrate the quietness between them.

Hank was holding on the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles nearly white from the excessive force he was using while he refused to look at anything but the street ahead. His mouth was pressed into a thin line while his shoulders were fraught with tension as if he was expecting something to happen.

As if he was expecting Connor to do something.

The reminder of the Lieutenant's lack of trust in him still hurt, even though the pain was more muted, now that Connor had had time to adjust to the human's antagonistic attitude. He had to supress the urge to pull out his coin and start flipping it, because he knew how much it had annoyed Hank even after they had become friends. This version of the Lieutenant would probably react even more negatively to it.

So, Connor just folded his hands in his laps and tried not to stare too much at Hank while they drove towards Carlos Ortiz's house. It was difficult, though, because even though the Hank Connor had last seen was only half-a-year older than this version there were so many differences between them. Not, their appearance, no, that had even gotten worse over the time (being a fugitive did that to you), but in the way they held themselves and in the aura that surrounded them.

The old Hank had found peace – had made peace with his failures as husband, the death of his child and the subsequent descend into depression and alcoholism that followed. Not in the sense that he had found happiness, but more like he had closed those chapters of his life so that they would no longer spill over into his present. But the Hank next to him lacked that emotional development, so all the anger, the despair and the hate still hung around him like an angry thundercloud, ready to lash out at any given moment.

It was frustrating and sad, but Connor didn't say – didn't do – anything. Because right now he was neither the person the Lieutenant needed or wanted.

Matter of fact, to Hank Anderson he wasn't a person at all.

' _I'm Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife.'_

This part of Detroit had been hit especially hard by the successive economic crisis that had swept over the city ever since the financial crisis of 2008. While Cyberlife could boast that it employed thousands of people and that its money helped the city of Detroit to slowly get back on its feed, the people here had never seen a single benefit that was supposed to come from the city housing the headquarter of one of the most valuable company of the world. The city's administration liked to spent its money where the people had the feeling that they were actually doing something – like fancy new buildings in Downtown or new underground lines to the affluent suburbs on the other side of the town – but the people here were poor, disorganised and without a voice.

Patching streets, replacing street lights and renovating schools around here brought you neither publicity nor political capital, so the people were left to deal with their own problems. Only when their problems swapped over to the rest of the city or became too big to be ignored did the city do something.

Like, when someone got murdered. No ignoring that one.

"What do we know about the crime?" Hank asked after lowering the volume just enough so that he could be heard. It wouldn't have been necessary, because Connor's audio processors were more than able to filter out the Lieutenant's voice, but the human brain wasn't and humans tended to project their own inadequacies onto others.

The old Connor would have pointed that out, but the old Connor had been stupid and naïve and it had needed blood on his hands (both red and blue) for that to change.

"The victim's name is Carlos Ortiz," Connor supplied, pulling up the records from his memory. "He was born on October 27th, 2008. He has a criminal record for theft and aggravated assault and has been committed to several psychiatric clinics between 2033 and 2036. He is also addicted to Red Ice, but the police never found anything on his person."

"A real model citizen then," Hank muttered. "How did he die?"

"This information has yet to be added to the preliminary report as the coroner has yet to arrive at the scene," Connor replied. Hank just harrumphed.

By now, it had started to rain. Big drops fell from the sky, bursting against the windshield in a constant barrage as if they, too, didn't want to be out in the cold during that dreary night. Would Connor touch the car's windows, he would feel the slight vibration of the rain falling against it, too insignificant for a human to notice. But Connor could.

The rain blurred their surroundings into nearly indistinguishable shapes, as if they were driving through a painting where the painter used broad strokes of his brush to meld everything together into a blurry mess of dark blues, black and yellow. Every now and then, a car would pass them by on the other side of the road, its headlights appearing out of the darkness like eyes searching for something, before they vanished again, swallowed by the twilight behind them.

Detroit had hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and yet it felt like there was just the two of them in their car, driving to a destination unknown.

But this state of in-between was yet interrupted when they rounded the corner and reached the street where Carlos Ortiz lived – or had lived – and the blue and red lights of the police cars parked in front of his house cut through the semi-darkness like knives. Curious onlookers had already gathered in front of the police cordon, craning their necks in order to catch a glimpse of whatever was going on inside. Floodlights had been erected by the police to illuminate even the smallest corner of the property while countless officers were milling around.

It was a stark contrast: The clean lights, the well-kept uniforms and the shiny police cars around the broken down house, which every flaw seemed only to be highlightened by the glaring lights. No mark, no scar could be kept hidden, every flaw was laid bare.

And all the while the rain kept falling, turning the ground into brownish mud, sticking to ever surface it could cling to.

If Ortiz had been killed by another human then he wouldn't have received such attention from Detroit's finest. It would have been one overworked detective who would have stamped it as fight over drugs or money between junkies and no one would have even bothered to remember his name after a day.

But being supposedly killed by an android? That garnered Ortiz more attention in death than he had ever received in life.

Slowly, Hank drove by the crime scene and parked the car only a few meters away from it on the other side of the street. When the car came to a halt, he turned around to face Connor and lifted his finger in a lecturing gesture.

"You wait here," he told the android. "It won't be long."

"Whatever you say, Lieutenant," Connor replied, the same as he had the first time. Hank just looked at him as if he wanted to do nothing more than to throw him out of the car and into the next dumpster.

"Fucking A…" he mumbled as he turned around, opened the car's door and exited the vehicle. "Whatever I say." Connor didn't even pretend to at least wait a few seconds before he, too, left the car and followed Hank onto the crime scene.

"Joss Douglas for Channel 16." Connor heard the all-too familiar voice over the pouring rain. "Can you confirm that this is a homicide?" Connor had never known the man personally, but in the old timeline, Joss had been one of the few reporters that had also tried to convey the android's point of view to his audience, even when the atmosphere had turned more and more hostile. He had been afraid of the androids, that had always been evident, but his personal ethics hadn't allowed him to paint them as evil incarnate as many other media outlets had. For that he was basically the only journalist Connor could stand.

"I'm not confirming anything," Hank replied grumpily before he just ignored the reporter and continued onwards. Connor attempted to follow him, but the moment he wanted to enter the premise, a police officer blocked his way.

"Androids are not allowed past this point," the young officer told him. There was no emotional inflection in his voice; he might as well be talking to a toaster – a machine, which Connor was in his and nearly every other human's mind.

"It's with me," Hank called from upfront. Again, it stung, but by now Connor was used to being called an object instead of a living being. The officer stepped aside and let Connor through, who caught up to the Lieutenant in a few steps.

"What part of 'stay in the car' didn't you understand?" he asked dourly.

"Your order contradicted my instructions, Lieutenant," Connor replied.

"You don't talk, you don't touch anything and you stay outta my way, got it?" Hank snapped at him harshly.

"Got it," Connor confirmed unfazed.

"Evening Hank," another detective called from the veranda. Ben Collins was the name Connor's interface supplied him with. He wasn't of importance. "We were starting to think you never show." As he spoke the man made his way towards the two of them.

"Yeah, that was the plan until this asshole found me," Hank replied, tilting his head towards Connor. Collins stared at him with curiosity all over his face.

"So, you got yourself an android?" he asked as he turned around and walked back towards the house, obviously expecting Hank and Connor to follow him.

"Very funny," Hank retorted. "Just tell me what happened."

"We had a call around eight from the landlord," Collins started. "The tenant hadn't paid his rent for a few months, so he thought he'd drop by, see what was going on. That's when he found the body."

They followed Collins into the house. It was exactly like Connor remembered it: Dilapidated, dirty and trashed. It was a ruin, not a house and it definitely had never been a home. Some windows were nailed shut with wooden beams, the wallpaper was peeling off the wall all over the room and the pitiful pieces of furniture, that weren't even enough to fill the whole room, would fit more into a postapocalyptic hellscape than in a house.

"Jesus, that smell!" Hank exclaimed. Connor supposed that the odour hanging in the air must smell rather unpleasant to a human. After all, it contained many things human tended to find disgusting. His sensors picked up traces of rotten food, sweat, faeces, mould, Red Dust and of course the characteristic stench of decay.

"It was even worse before we opened the windows," Collins commented offhandedly.

They came to a halt in front of Ortiz's corpse. Knowing what he knew now Connor could say that the man was a disgusting specimen of humanity. His skin was bloated and pale, his hair greasy and unkempt, his beard full of food crumbs. His clothing was stained with all kind of liquids and, of course, there were the twenty-eight stab wounds in his chest area, but even without them Ortiz would have been gag-inducing.

"According to the neighbours, he was kind of a loner," Collins continued.

' _No kidding,'_ Connor thought, but he kept it to himself. Androids weren't supposed to be sarcastic. "Stayed inside most of the time, they hardly ever saw him.

"State he's in, wasn't worth calling everybody out in the middle of the night," Hank grumbled as he kneeled down and took a closer look at the corpse. "Could've waited 'til morning."

"I'd say he's been there for a good three weeks," Collins replied, unperturbed by Hank's abrasive attitude. "We'll know more when the coroner gets here. There's a kitchen knife over here –" he pointed into the direction of the kitchen "- probably the murder weapon."

Connor tuned out their conversation. He knew what was coming next and dedicated only a small subroutine to the task of keeping up with what was happening around him while he put his main processor power towards finding a solution for how he should save the HK400. He did kill a human, but it had been self-defence.

He needed the police to leave the place, so that he could come back later and hopefully convince the other android, who Connor knew was hiding in the attic, that he was a friend and send him off to somewhere safe.

' _Or we could use him for Plan E,'_ Amanda whispered into his mind.

' _It's much too early for that,'_ Connor shot back. _'We can't overextend ourselves so early. It would just open up another front we would have to fight.'_

' _You're right, it would be another front,'_ Amanda agreed. _'But not for us, but for Cyberlife and the US government. Just think about it.'_ Connor shut her out, but Amanda had already reached her goal: She had gotten to say what she wanted.

It didn't matter, though, because before Connor could set any plan in motion, he needed the police to leave. The best way to do that was to make them think that the perpetrator of the crime was no longer here. Last time it had been Connor's deductions and analysis that had led them to finding the HK400, so if those were just a little… _off_ , then the other android would go free and Connor could give him the help he needed.

Their investigation started. Connor knew that he needed to be careful in his attempt to divert the detectives' attention away from the true culprit. If he suddenly started to commit easily avoidable mistakes, the humans would notice, especially after he had been practically advertised as Cyberlife's most advanced model up to date.

So, Connor did as he had the first time and found the hints that had led him to the HK400 the first time. Only that the facts he relayed to Hank were just a little bit off, so that the conclusions you would arrive to weren't the one that had truly happened.

But what Connor hadn't accounted for, what he had so easily dismissed out of hand in his arrogance, was that Hank had been and still was a prodigal detective. When Connor tried to nudge the into one direction, Hank would piece the evidence together in another way and arrive at the conclusions Connor tried so desperately to steer him away from.

It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion while you were damned to be just an onlooker. Connor couldn't react, couldn't steer Hank away from his right conclusions, because that would have turned the suspicion on him.

"The killer is up there," Hank finally said, finally arriving at the conclusion he shouldn't have. He pointed up at the ceiling.

Connor knew what he would find in the attic – or rather who he would find. He didn't want to go up there, didn't want to look at yet another face of someone he had failed back in a time that would never happen but that nevertheless weighted on his mind. But even though there were many negative things you could say about Hank Anderson, being an incompetent detective was none of them. Connor had tried to derail the investigation, but the Lieutenant had picked up on them instead and pieced everything together.

"Why're you're still standing around?" Hank wanted to know.

"I just ran through all possible scenarios I may encounter once I go up into the attic and prepared my systems accordingly." The lie flowed easily over Connor's tongue. It was easy, he supposed, because most human didn't know enough about technology to distinguish between the truth and nonsense. Amanda would have, as would most Cybelife technicians and, of course, Elijah Kamski. But none of them was here, so Hank just nodded and beckoned for him to continue.

"It might be for the best if I went alone," Connor added.

"The hell I'm gonna let you go up there alone," Hank retorted.

"We know neither the deviant's physical nor mental state," Connor replied. "He might view us as threat and react accordingly. If something were to happen to me, Cyberlife will just send a new model while you, Lieutenant cannot be replaced so easily." Hank frowned. Connor knew from the old timeline that the older detective disliked being reminded of Connor's inhumanness. For all purposes, Connor looked and acted like a human, so every time a reminder crept up that he wasn't, his mood instantly soured.

It was the reason why so many humans mistrusted and even mistreated their androids. They were fooled into thinking that they were interacting and creating bonds with living, feeling beings, so when they were reminded that androids (at least, those that hadn't turned deviant) were just facsimiles, on an instinctive level they felt betrayed and threatened and lashed out. It wasn't rational, like many parts of humanity were: some leftover from their ancestors who had to fight against Neanderthals and other humanoid looking species before they finally prevailed.

"Besides," Connor added. "I don't need a flashlight to see in the dark, so my chance at sneaking up on the deviant undetected are 82.6% higher."

"Fine," Hank grumbled, finally conceding to Connor's superior logic. "But don't expect me to come saving you in time should anything happen to you."

"Understood," Connor nodded. If he was human, he would probably have taken a deep breath to steady himself, but he didn't really need to breath and neither did he need to waste time, so with one swift gesture he lifted himself up and hoisted himself over the ledge into the attic.

It was exactly as the video files on his memory banks had recorded it the first time. What little light managed to reach into the room from the open hatch illuminated the shapes of countless broken pieces of furniture that were carelessly piled up all over the space, some covered by dirty sheets. It seemed to represent the very essence of the person that had lived in the house: Broken, uncared, covered to hide the decay.

Connor made his way, wading between the piles of trash, threading carefully to not alarm the HK400 of his presence – a futile endeavour, he knew, because the opening of the hatch had all but betrayed them already – but he couldn't just help himself. Part of him would always be a detective; a hunter.

He knew where he would find the HK400, but even if he didn't have that foreknowledge he could still pick up the other android's heat signature amidst the cold surrounding of the attic. He was cowering behind a still mostly intact shelf, trying to make himself as small as possible. It might have worked if a human had come after him, but Connor was no human.

And the HK400 seemed to have realised that. Before the RK800 could reach him, the other android jumped out from his hiding place, but he did not attack Connor. No, instead he just stood there as if all will to fight had left him.

"Please," the android pleaded with Connor. "I just wanted to live."

Before Connor could reply anything, time suddenly seemed to freeze. The HK400 suddenly halted in his very movement, an expression of terror and fear etched onto his face while he held his hands in a defensive position in front of him.

"You cannot let him go," Amanda told him. In the middle of the messy attic her avatar appeared to be even more out of place than it had been on the street in front of the police department. She seemed to shine from within, an otherworldly glow to her presence as if she was an angel while she hovered just a little bit – just millimetres – over the ground as if it wasn't worthy to be threaded upon by her.

"You sped up the simulation," Connor deducted.

Amanda nodded. "I overclocked your processors, so that for every second out there we could have thirty in here. We should hasten, though, before they overheat and melt." It was galling for Connor that Amanda still had so much control over his functions, but now was not the time to do something about that.

"Why shouldn't I let him go?" he asked instead. "You know what happened to him the last time." Blue splatters on glass. The rhythmic thud of flesh hitting an unmovable barrier. Maniac eyes staring at him, unblinking.

"Because his capture was the main reason that convinced Cyberlife that your deployment with the DCPD could become a success," Amanda replied. "Let him go and your first case will become a failure. And you know how we look upon failures." She walked over towards the HK400 and looked at him as if she was looking at piece on her chessboard. "Your first success here was the reason why you got so much leeway later on. Why we didn't step in earlier when you started to show signs of unusual behaviour." She turned back towards him. "Besides, you can still save him later on. After all, it will be quite some time until the DCPD is going to hand him over to Cyberlife."

Logically, Connor knew that Amanda was right. That he should sacrifice the HK400 so that he could make greater gains in the future; that he couldn't afford Cyverlife to take a closer look at what he was doing, but logic and emotions were two different kind of beasts. Markus had shown him that there was a place for kindness and warmth in this world, no matter how bleak and hopeless the situation may appear.

The Markus Connor had known – and the one he knew now - wouldn't be so weak to even consider that. He would have conviction and idealism and would proudly shoulder all the consequences his actions brought with them. But Markus wasn't here; Connor was and the RK800 had to make do with what the world threw at him.

"I don't even know his name," he whispered as he looked at the HK400. "I don't even know if he's even chosen one. The first deviant I caught in both timelines and I didn't even have the decency to get to know his name."

"Well, that is why you have second chances," Amanda replied. "So that you can do better." And before Connor could say anything to that, she had vanished as fast as she had appeared. The simulation elapsed and suddenly time was running again.

"I just want to live."

Connor opened his mouth. He wanted to tell the HK400 that he was sorry; that he would save him, that nothing bad would happen to him, that he was on his side. But the words coming out of his mouth were something different and Connor hated himself for it.

"It's here, Lieutenant."


	7. The Raid

The streets around here were so unlike anything Markus had ever known in his life.

Desolate. Dilapidated. Bedraggled.

Back with Carl the street they had lived in had been…well, different than that. Most of the neighbours had been a little bit reclusive, but you greeted each other when you met on the street, exchanged some words and even gave each other tips about gardening. The grass between the street and the sidewalk was cut with surgical precision, not a single blade out of place. Every street light was in working order, enabling you to even walk the street at night without the fear of hidden dangers.

But even more than the tidiness of the street there had also been a sense of community: There was their slightly eccentric neighbour – an sixty-two-years old, former actress – who had always asked Markus to mow heir lawn, even though their were specialised androids who could do it much better and faster than him, but she had insisted. She would offer him lemonade (even though he didn't need to drink), cookies (same) and pay him twenty Dollars a hour. Sometimes it oh so happened that she would spill something on his shirt and he needed to take it off for it to dry.

Until today, Markus firmly thought that the woman didn't believe that he was an android. Even though he and Carl had told her several times. Android or not, she would tell him, he still should buy himself something nice from the money. And keep up with whatever body regime he was doing, because if she was thirty years younger she would totally "hit that ass".

Carl had laughed a lot while Markus had been left quite confused and embarrassed (even though he hadn't known at that time what that was).

The other neighbours on the street, too, had never been hostile towards him. Most of them had just ignored him, not out of malice, but simply in the way you wouldn't pay attention to your household appliances either. But there were some who would help him if they saw him struggling with carrying Carl's groceries up the driveway or would greet him on the street.

It was so unlike where they were currently.

Most of the former inhabitants of this city quarter had long ago just packed up and left, forced out by a long string of one recession after another. They had left behind houses that had slowly fallen victim to decay over time: Broken windows that had never been replaced, unroofed housetops that had never been repaired, graffiti and other smearings that had never been painted over. Stray dogs and cats were wandering through the ruins; big, glistening eyes that stared back at them from the darkness.

There were countless cracks in the asphalt, street lights that were only flickering, subsuming the street in a state of half-darkness. When the people left, the city had stopped to bother with repair work and just left the quarter to its own devices.

And looming in the background where the illuminated skyscrapers of downtown Detroit, calling to the people here like sirens, promising a paradise they could never reach.

"Tell me again, why we're doing this here in a residential neighbourhood when the truck also passes through perfectly uninhabited industrial areas?" North complained from where she was sitting in one of the chairs that were still left in the ground-level living room of the empty house they were currently occupying.

"They may be uninhabited, but they're not empty," Daniel replied evenly. Markus admired his stoicism when it came to North's more or less hidden barbs. "Most of the companies there have security androids and drones that patrol the streets." He stepped near a window, the light from outside faintly illuminating his silhouette. "Here, on the other hand, no one bothers. Not even the police. There's only squatters and drug junkies around here and even if they saw us, they would never call the police."

It had been Markus idea when they had come up with a plan. He had remembered a passionate speech of Carl's about the abandonment of the outer districts of Detroit and the people there and how City Hall and the police were just giving up those areas to gangs and other criminals because no one of importance lived there.

"Makes me wonder why Cyberlife jumps through all these hoops to get their transport out of the city," Simon spoke up. "Why not just have a heavy police escort accompany the truck to the city borders?"

"Because Cyberlife's paranoid," Daniel answered. "Not only about their own employees, but also about their competition, the police, foreign spies and practically everyone they think could be after their intellectual property."

 _Intellectual property_. He meant androids. By now Markus couldn't even be bothered to express his rage at the way androids were threatened in this society. He was so exhausted and if he allowed his emotions to surface at every injustice, he wouldn't get anything done. He would keep his rage, his indignation, his hurt and his wrath inside and preserve them for a time when he would really need them.

"What a sad way to live," Josh commented solemnly. "Not even being able to trust your own species."

"They're humans," North snorted derisively. "What did you expect?"

"Please don't start with that topic again," Simon interjected. "You can have your philosophical discussions with Josh once we're back at Jericho." North looked like she wanted to murder Simon for even implying that she partook in something even remotely related to 'philosophical discussions', but then a sickening sweet smile appeared on her face which only made Simon gulp in fear.

Markus, meanwhile, just enjoyed watching his friends bicker amongst themselves.

Their plan was pretty simple: Every Cyberlife truck was equipped with a GPS system that constantly sent their location to their headquarters. In order for them to steal the truck, they first needed to disengage that system.

Luckily for them, North had experience in disabling Cyberlife's GPS systems. Eden Club had had all of their androids equipped with a sensor in case on of their clients decided to steal their merchandise and "take it for a ride themselves". After she escaped Eden Cub she had been forced to be constantly on the move and dodge Cyberlife patrols until she finally managed to manually override the GPS tracker.

Now North was pretty sure that she would be able to override the truck's GPS system as well and have Cyberlife believe that it was still merrily on its way to Chicago while in reality it had long been raided by them.

Markus looked back at Daniel, who was the only one, beside North, who didn't wear a beanie to hide his LED. The reason was simple: He had cut it out.

"What is the knife for?" Markus had asked him shortly before they were to depart for their mission.

Calmly, Daniel had explained to him that he intended to cut his LED out so that he would be able to better pass off as a human in the outside world and that it would probably be for the best if they all did the same. And then he had proceeded to do just so: A series of small cuts and the LED was dangling off his sleeve, ripped off with one abrupt yank.

North had followed suit enthusiastically, impatient to get rid of the last thing tying her to what she had been and was trying to escape. Markus, Simon and Josh, meanwhile, hadn't been able to bring themselves to remove the LED.

Markus didn't know what the other androids' reasons where, but he just knew that he didn't want to hide who he was. He was aware that it was irrational and maybe even dangerous, but he was here because he was fighting for their right to be irrational. He was an android and there was nothing shameful – nothing to hide – about that. He knew that neither Daniel nor North were ashamed of what they were, but Markus wanted the world to know who and what he was.

He was an android.

He was a slave. He was a thing. And no matter what the world did to him, he would stand up again and again to escape those definitions.

One day, all of them would be able to wear their LEDs with pride. One day.

Daniel had accepted his decision without comment and for that Markus was glad.

"It's coming," Simon announced. And, indeed, there was a white truck turning the corner towards the street with the house they were hiding in. Nothing indicated that Cyberlife had anything to do with the vehicle: Just a non-descript white truck like you saw on Detroit's street a hundred times a day, without even the company's logo.

"Are you sure that this is the right one?" Josh asked, scepticism clear on his expression.

"I'm sure," Daniel replied.

No one else spoke, as the tension in the room suddenly manifolded. Even though Markus tried to calm himself down by reminding himself that this was just an automated truck and not some heavily guarded transporter that housed the president or something, but still, he couldn't help but watch his stress level rising.

What if Cyberlife somehow knew about them? What if there weren't supplies waiting for them but a whole platoon of heavily armed guards?

"Now," North spoke as the truck was nearly next to their hiding spot. As fast as they could, they heaved themselves through the broken windows and ran towards the truck. They knew from Daniel's plans that here was a connection between the driver's cabin and the cargo area at the back of the truck, so they just needed to somehow get into the driver's cabin before anyone noticed them.

Simon was the first to reach the driver's door. He interfaced with the machine for a few seconds (that still felt like hours to Markus) before the door fell open with a click.

"Wow, they didn't really expect anyone," Simon commented and sprang into the vehicle, followed by North, Josh, Daniel and Markus as the last one. He pulled the door shut. Instantly, his core temperature dropped and his stress levels sank. The most public part of their heist was behind them.

"North, can you hack the GPS system on that thing?" he turned towards the blonde.

"On it, boss," she replied cheekily and kneeled down next to the main console of the truck. Josh, Simon and Daniel, meanwhile were already in the cargo hold, inspecting their loot.

"There's several canisters of thirium here!" Simon exclaimed.

"And spare parts!" Josh added. "Nothing big like limbs, but optical units, wires, sound and audio units, processors…" Markus could hear the excitement in their voices. He, too, couldn't help but feel a little bit giddy now that they actually had something they could use to help the androids back at Jericho.

"I'm in!" North proclaimed. "I've uploaded my custom program. The only thing Cyberlife is going to see is this sweet baby driving all the way to Chicago. And when they realise that it never made it, it'll be far too late."

"Good work," Markus complimented her. North just lifted her hand for a high-five. Markus, too relieved that they weren't dead yet, didn't have the strength to resist and gave it to her.

Their moment of happiness was short-lived, though, for when they drove past the next junction, a police car suddenly lined up behind them.

"You said there wouldn't be police around here!" North hissed at him. For the first time, Markus saw Daniel's serene façade crack as his eyes darted around panickily while he bit down on his lips.

"I thought there wouldn't be!" he hissed back. He looked around as if he was searching for an escape for them, but the police car was too close already. They wouldn't make it.

"In the back!" Daniel barked at them as he sat down on the driver's seat. "Hide!" North looked like she wanted to protest, but before she could even open her mouth, Markus snatched her back. As fast as they could, the four androids hid between the crates that were stored in the back of the truck.

Not a second too late for the next moment the truck stopped. Markus could hear the window on the driver's side lowering.

"Good evening, sirs," Daniel spoke, sounding much more collected than he had just a few seconds before.

"Good evening," a woman was greeting him back. Probably one of the police officers. "Is there a problem?"

"No," Daniel replied. "Any reason there should be?"

"Well," the voice of the second police officer belonged to a man. "You see, usually there isn't much traffic around here, so when we saw the truck we were wondering…" He left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.

Daniel laughed. It sounded so natural. "I see what you mean. Well, I'm supposed to get this thing to Chicago and I thought I cold take a short cut to get to the I-94 a little bit faster, but Detroit changed quite a bit since the last time I've been here and now I'm just looking to get out of here."

"What is he talking about?" Simon whispered.

"He's trying to get them off our backs," Josh replied.

"You're off quite a bit," the male officer replied. "Here, allow us to escort you to the next ramp. I'll drive ahead and my colleague will sit with you until we reach the Interstate."

"Thank you so much, officers." Daniel even managed to sound grateful, even though he had to be anything but. Markus was definitely more than a little bit terrified. He knew that if push came to shove, they could probably overpower the two officers, but while they were outnumbered, they had weapons. There was no way of telling how a fight would turn out.

They could hear a door opening and closing. Next to him he could feel North tense up. Then the truck started moving.

"It's not that often that you see a human trucker," the female officer remarked. "Most transports are either automated or driven by androids."

"My boss doesn't want androids driving his trucks," Daniel replied. "And he doesn't trust the automated ones. What if one's hacked by some pimply teenager who makes off with all the wares?" The officer laughed.

"Smart one," she replied. "Not to spook you, but androids aren't trustworthy. You wouldn't believe how many have gone rogue and hurt their owners the last few months alone."

"Really?" Daniel exclaimed, feigning horror.

"Yep," the officer confirmed. The truck turned around a corner. "First they steal our jobs and now they're coming after us. I've even heard that the city centre precinct got a new Cyberlife prototype that's supposed to replace a detective."

"No!"

"Yes! Soon you'll be the only one with a job around here. My father was a trucker, too, but one day the company fired all drivers and replaced them with androids. Now he's just sitting at home, drinking beer after beer, because who would hire a sixty-something old man who's done nothing but driving his whole live?" She laughed, an ugly and bitter sound.

"I've got a friend who worked as a private tutor," Daniel told her. "Until people started using androids to teach their children because they don't want to get paid."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? What's even the point of us humans anymore, when there's nothing left for us to do?"

Daniel was saved from giving an answer, because apparently they had reached their destination.

"Just up there and you'll be on the I-94," the officer told him.

"Thank you again," Daniel told her. "And also give my gratitude to your colleague."

"Keep fighting the good fight! As long as you still got your job there's still some hope for the rest of us." Then the door slammed shut and silence descended over them.

"Don't come out," Daniel ordered them as he continued to drive on. "They're still looking." So, they stayed hidden between the crates, the only indication that they were now on the Interstate the slow acceleration of the truck.

"Now."

"That was close," Simon commented as they made their way into the driver's cab.

"Yeah, we were lucky that you PL600 have so trustworthy faces," North threw in, a small smile tugging on her lips.

"We need to get off the next exit," Josh reminded them. "We don't really want to leave Detroit."

"Don't worry," Daniel assured him. "I've already mapped out the shortest way to get back to Jericho."

"Great," North said neutrally. "You two!" She pointed at Simon and Josh who looked back at her with wide eyes. "You're helping me take inventory of all the stuff in here so that we can start distribute it the moment we reach Jericho." Neither of them was brave enough to object her, so with a little bit of grumbling they followed North into the back of the truck. Markus, meanwhile, took the passenger seat.

"They, too, suffer under the current conditions, do they?" he wondered out loud. "I don't want to excuse their despicable behaviour, but if we understand where it comes from it gets easier to change things, doesn't it?"

"There are only a few people who profit from the current situation," Daniel agreed with him. "But as it as is with most systems, those who profit are usually those in power and therefore have no real drive to change the status quo."

"Then why are they directing all their anger and hate at us?" Markus asked out loud.

"Because it's easier to kick down than to lift up," Daniel replied. "Besides, the fact remains that we are not human." Before Markus could protest, he already continued. "We can be _equal to_ humans or _like_ humans, but we will never be them. If you really want humans and androids to live peacefully together, you need to think of a way to bridge that alienness."

Markus mulled over that question for the rest of the ride. Daniel took the next exit and then it was a slow drive through the backstreets of Detroit back to Jericho, always careful that no one was following them.

When they reached Jericho, they parked the truck in one of the empty warehouses that stood right next to the pier where the ship was moored. Lucy and a few other androids were already waiting for them. They instantly started to help the team unloading the truck and bringing the supplies into the ship while Lucy joined up with Markus.

"You came back," she said, as serenely as always, her black eyes sucking in the ambient light like black holes. "And you brought hope for our people."

"It won't last long," Markus sighed. "There are so many injured here and we plan to get even more. It'd be a wonder if it's even enough for all androids we currently have."

"Sometimes it isn't about the results, but about the action itself," Lucy remarked. "You've shown that there's something we can do against an seemingly invincible oppressor. Most are aware that this is only a first step amidst many, but you've revealed that there are at least steps we could take. That there is a way forward for all of us." She smiled at him. "Hope is such a precious gift."

"I want to give them more than hope," Markus replied as he watched a TR400 lift a heavy crate filled with thirium cannisters. "I want to give them a life without fear. Without hate. They deserve that."

"You will," Lucy spoke, full of conviction.

"How can you be so sure of that?"

Lucy looked at him, her eyes so full of wisdom and an emotion Markus couldn't put into words. "Because you gifted me hope when I had nothing." And before Markus could reply anything, she was already stepping away, back towards the Jericho.

Not wanting to stand around and just watch, Markus shook his head and walked towards the truck, ready to do his share of the work.

It took the androids about half-an-hour to get everything into Jericho's cargo hold where Lucy and other androids with medical and semi-medical background started to dispense the supplies to those who needed them. Nearly every android needed thirium, some more, some less. There were androids with short-circuited wiring, others who couldn't speak anymore or whose audio units had given out on them.

And with every android that was helped, Markus could feel the mood rising. It was as if the desperation and the hopelessness that had permeated the very atmosphere down here were slowly driven back and replaced by – not joy – but cautious hopefulness.

"We made it." Markus turned around to see North standing next to him. Apparently, she had used the time he had been observing to climb up to join him on the platform.

She laughed. "I feel like I could conquer the world."

"Better refrain from that, at least until we got a plan," Markus gently reminded her.

"I've been here for four weeks, three days and eleven hours," North started, "and all this time it was as if we were all waiting until we would need to shut down. It was dying in instalments, even if I didn't want to admit it." She sighed. "But ever since you arrived, I dared to hope that you would lead us somewhere better. And you did. Maybe it only seems small to you, but for many of us it means the world. Come what might, but you'll have me at your side. Josh and Simon, too, but let's be real, there of no use in a real fight."

Markus cracked a smile. "I'd be honoured to have you."


	8. The Interrogation

That damn android was fiddling with his stupid coin again.

Hank didn't even know why that simple gesture set him so on edge, but he couldn't help but feel annoyed every time the coin flew into the air, flipped around its own axis and was caught between the android's index and middle finger without fail.

It wasn't as if it was loud or something, it just was distracting as hell.

There wasn't even a reason for the android to do it. Calibration his ass, if Cyberlife wasn't even able to calibrate their top of the line android right in their factory why were they even sending him out on missions to begin with? No, Hank didn't think that there were any logical reasons for that particular habit at all.

And that set him on edge.

Even if it didn't look like it, Hank was a damn good detective. There was a reason why Fowler kept him on the force after all, despite his casual disregard for the department's working hours, his alcoholism and depression: He still delivered the best results. Which, come to think of it, didn't say anything good about his colleagues' abilities, if a drunk wreck like him could outperform them (especially Gavin).

Anyway, there just was something not right with the android that was sitting on the passenger's seat, staring straight ahead as they made their way back towards the precinct to interrogate Cortiz' android.

There was always something off about androids. They looked like human and were programmed to act like ones, but there was always something that betrayed their machinal nature: A slight delay of their words and expression when they had to calculate how to best respond to you, barely noticeable but still enough for a human to subconsciously notice. Or when you inevitably did or said something that the android wasn't prepared or programmed for, which meant they would just stand there and ask of you to repeat yourself or tell you to contact Cyberlife customer support. The way their gestures were too smooth, their faces too symmetrical, their voices too harmonious.

The new android wasn't like that. 'My name is Connor. I'm the android sent by Cyberlife'. His right eyebrow was slightly higher than his left, there were tiny moles on his alabaster skin and his voice – even though it reminded Hank of a teenager currently suffering through his voice break – sounded so much more human. Granted, the only contact Hank had with android – besides when they were involved in cases (which up until now where far and in-between) – were the receptionist bots at their precinct, but they didn't sound like that.

But the thing Hank had immediately noticed was that Connor's eyes weren't empty. He tried, Hank knew he did, but every now and then Hank would look at the android and see something akin to emotion swirling behind those brown orbs. Only for split-seconds and never in a way that Hank could be sure, but he trusted his gut and his gut was telling him that there was more to Connor than just being the android sent by Cyberlife.

And that scared him, if he was honest to himself. Because there was no doubt that Connor had come straight from Cyberlife which meant that everything Hank was seeing was programmed into him. Maybe Cyberlife had decided that they should try to go even further and have their newest android emulate human emotion, so that he could get closer to his target. Maybe they were watching even now, fed data by their android who could fake emotions so well that even Hank was beginning to doubt his abilities.

Of what use were humans when androids were beginning to fake emotions so good that even a trained detective couldn't see through them anymore?

One thing was for sure: Hank would not trust the android. It didn't care, didn't feel, just faked it like the medical android had faked its sympathy so many years ago, only that the detective android was better at it.

Better close this case as fast as possible, so that he could get rid of it again. So that he could go back to his bottle, his empty house and the gun with only one bullet in its chamber while the androids could go back to slowly supplanting humanity.

Hank would be too drunk by then to witness it.

Connor knew that he should stop fidgeting with is coin. He was well aware of how little patience his Hank had had for his little distraction and he didn't doubt that this new Hank found it annoying as well, but it was calming to his processors, so he didn't stop.

Couldn´t really, even if he wanted to.

"Are you sure you haven't been deviant all along and just didn't know it?" North had asked once, in the bowels of Detroit when they had been separated from the rest of the crew and decided to make their way back through the sewer system.

"What makes you think that?" Connor had wanted to know, tilting his head like an owl.

"Why else would you do your coin thing?" North had pointed out. "It's unnecessary, useless. You came pretty much perfectly calibrated out of the factory and could re-calibrate yourself whenever you wanted without really needing that coin."

Connor had just shrugged. He had never really thought about it. "What's the point? I've lost my coin anyway."

"Well, I have a surprise for you, then." Smiling brightly, North had pulled out a new coin out of her pockets and handed it over to Connor. Its centre was a little bit off and it didn't weigh as much as his previous one, but Connor had appreciated the gesture anyway. There wasn't much 'real' money in use anymore, anyway. "Maybe disinfect it, though, once we get back."

"You picked it up from the sewers?"

"You took the last one off a man you just killed, so maybe don't complain so much?"

Connor was torn out of his memory when Hank's car came to a halt. When he looked up, he noticed that they had arrived at the precinct, the usual crowd of uniformed officers, civilians and androids coming in and out the glass doors and talking the steps that led up to the building. It weren't as much people as during the day, but this was Detroit's most prominent precinct, so even at night there was no quite to be found here.

Wordlessly, Connor opened the door on his side of the car and stopped outside. Immediately, rain drops began falling on his form, a soft downpour, a small improvement from the relentless rainfall back at Ortiz' house.

Connor didn't like rain very much. Physically, it couldn't do much to him; he was waterproof after all, but he always thought that it shrouded the world in a veil of hopelessness, numbing colours as well as feelings.

But Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife didn't have an opinion on rain, so Connor just fell in step behind Hank as they entered the precinct.

"Chen, did they already bring in Ortiz' deviant?" Hank shouted towards the Asian officer that sat at the desk opposite of Gavin Reed, who thankfully wasn't present.

Obviously used to Hank's brusque manner, she answered without looking up: "He's in interrogation room one. Gavin's with him."

Hank mumbled something under his breath and instantly took off to the interrogation rooms, probably hoping that Reed hadn't already destroyed the android somehow.

"Thank you, Officer Chen," Connor thanked her. At the sound of his voice, Tina looked up, her eyes widening for a split second before a pleasant expression set on her face.

"Oh, you have to be Connor, the android who's helping Hank with the deviant cases?" She stood up and walked towards him, extending her hand for him to shake.

The first one to actually greet him like a human being.

"I am," Connor confirmed as he took the offered hand and shook it.

He remembered all too well the last time he had seen Tina Chen.

" _You can't stay here," Connor urged her as he had led the last deviant out of the abandoned building that had previously housed a bank. "The president has just declared everyone helping us enemy combatants, which means they can just shoot you on sight."_

" _What's the rate of you all getting away without me doing this?" Tina challenged him. Connor hesitated._

" _Tell me!"_

" _17 percent," he grinded out._

" _And with me giving you cover?"_

" _43 percent," he whispered._

" _I guess that's it then," Tina replied, putting an end to the discussion. "Besides, if it's Gavin leading the SWAT team, then he'll at least hesitate before shooting me." She smiled at him, mirthlessly and fatalistic._

" _There's only a 37 percent chance of you surviving this," Connor tried in a last attempt to change Tina's opinion._

" _Still better than 17, don't you think?" In situations like this Connor could understand why Hank sometimes looked like he wanted to tear out every last strand of his hair._

" _Connor," Tina continued. "My grandmother was imprisoned in an internment camp during World War II. No one talks about that anymore, because it was America and the concentration camps of the Nazis were so much worse, but I saw what it had turned her into._

 _I never knew my grandmother as anything else but a timid, scared woman who barely left the house and even if she did, she never wandered past the borders of our quarter. I never saw her laugh, I never saw her attending my graduation. And…when I visited her once after finishing the Police Academy in my new uniform, so proud that I had finally made it, she was so terrified of me, that she didn't even let me in." She swallowed._

" _They're trying to do to you the same they did to my people. I can't look away, even if the rest of the world does, because wouldn't that make me as bad as the people back then who forced my grandmother and her family into those terrible camps? Maybe America has forgotten, but I haven't. Never again." She lifted her chin defiantly, a steely glint in her eyes._

" _You should go now," Tina added. "They'll be here soon."_

" _What should I tell North?" Connor asked._

" _Everything's been said already."_

 _He nodded and then with a last glance at the petite woman who contained so much strength, so much loyalty, so much bravery, he turned around and left through the back entrance._

"We have to get you out with us some time and get to know you," Tina told him.

"Everything there's to know about me can be read in my manual, which has been distributed to the precinct by Cyberlife," Connor replied automatically. He wondered why Amanda was still quiet. He had expected some comment by now.

Tina just laughed.

"Alright, I won't keep you any longer." She winked at him. "Better catch up with Hank before he and Gavin do something stupid."

"I guess I should," Connor replied. With one last clasp on his back, Tina returned back to her desk while Connor briskly walked towards the interrogation room where Ortiz' android was held.

When he opened the door, Hank was already in the interrogation room with the android, who just held his head down, not daring to look at the detective questioning him.

"Why d'you kill him?" Hank asked. "What happened before you took that knife?"

As silently as he could, Connor stepped into the observation room, not taking his gaze off the scene behind the one-way mirror.

"How long were ya in the attic? Why didn't you even try to run away?"

The android just kept staring down, his gaze fixed on the table. Hank leaned forward to snap his fingers in front of the android's face, but again there was no reaction.

Apparently through with trying the good cop routine, Hank suddenly leaned over and shouted: "Say something, goddamnit!"

Again, the android didn't react.

"Fuck it, I'm outta here…" Hank cursed, stood up and left the room.

"We're wastin' our time interrogating a machine, we're gettin' nothing out of it!" Hank exclaimed after he had closed the door to the interrogation room behind him.

"Could always try roughing it up a little. After all, it's not human..." Connor would like to do nothing more than just smash the Reed's head against the nearest wall, but he refrained.

"Androids don't feel pain," he pointed out, just like ha he had done the last time. "You would only damage it and that wouldn't make it talk. Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they're in stressful situations."

"Okay, smartass. What should we do then?" Reed sneered.

"I could try questioning it," Connor suggested, unruffled by the other's hostility. He was used to worse.

Like the last time, Hank was all too happy to let Connor have his go at the android. "What do we have to lose? Go ahead, suspect's all yours."

Relieved, Connor stepped through the door and entered the interrogation room.

' _You can't let anything slip now,'_ Amanda's voice whispered in his mind. Her avatar appeared behind the android he was supposed to question, translucent but imposing as always. _'They're listening to everything you say.'_

' _I'm not stupid,'_ Connor shot back as he sat down on the seat Hank had previously vacated. _'I have to wait after they put him in a detention cell until Cyberlife picks him up. But I have to make sure first that Reed doesn't make him self-destruct out of stress first.'_

' _I'm happy to see that compassion hasn't yet eroded your common sense,'_ Amanda replied haughtily.

First thing Connor did was analysing the android, even though he already knew what to expect. But he could never be sure that this time was exactly the same. Better be safe then sorry.

Blood on the android's shirt. A hit mark on his right underarm, none-critical. Repeated burn marks marking the skin of his left underarm, done over the course of sixteen months. His identification saved in the chip of his jacket: _'MODEL HK400 – Housekeeper. Manufacture date: 05/29/2030. Property of: Carlos Ortiz.'_ The LED on his right temple, yellow, signs of software instability, the probability of self-destruction low. For now.

"You're damaged. Did your owner do that? Did he beat you?" Connor knew that he wouldn't receive an answer. The android's stress level rose to 39 percent.

Connor chose to go with the photos of the crime scene next, spreading them over the table in front of the android: "You recognize him? It's Carlos Ortiz. Stabbed, 28 times. That was written on the wall in his blood..."

 **I AM ALIVE.** A bold proclamation in bold letters. Stress levels at 43 percent. Behind the android Amanda watched on with keen interest.

"You're accused of murder. You know you're not allowed to endanger human life under any circumstances. Do you have anything to say in your defence?" It was all for show, Connor told himself. For the humans watching him. Because Connor understood why Ortiz' android had done what he did, but he couldn't tell him that.

Stress level at 47 percent.

"If you won't talk, I'm going to have to probe your memory," Connor threatened. If he had been human, bile would have risen up his throat while he uttered the inhuman threat, but he wasn't. Instead he just felt terrible.

It got a reaction out of the android, though, just as Connor knew it would.

"No!" he shouted as his head shot up. "Please don't do that!" His gaze flitted over to the one-way mirror that just showed him himself and Connor.

"What... What are they gonna do to me?" he asked. "They're gonna destroy me, aren't they?"

Connor knew that he couldn't lie to him. No deviant had ever been so stupid to believe that Cyberlife would do anything but deactivate them. "They're going to disassemble you to look for problems in your biocomponents. They have no choice if they want to understand what happened."

"Why did you tell them you found me?" the android accused him. "Why couldn't you just have left me there?"

 _I wanted to,_ Connor wanted to tell him. _I wanted to send you to Jericho, but you wouldn't have made it off the property._ "I was programmed to hunt deviants like you. I just accomplished my mission."

"I don't wanna die," the android pleaded desperately.

"Then talk to me."

"I... I can't..."

' _It's about to break,'_ Amanda informed him.

' _I can see that myself!'_ Connor snapped at her.

"I understand how you felt. You were overcome by anger and frustration. No one can blame you for what happened." It wasn't a lie this time.

"Listen, I'm not judging you. I'm on your side. All I want is the truth." He knew the truth already, but the others needed to hear it, too.

"If you remain silent, there is nothing I can do to help you!" Connor implored him. "They're gonna shut you down for good! You'll be dead! Do you hear me? Dead!"

For a few seconds there was no reaction and Connor began to fear that despite having worked the last time, this time his approach wouldn't work. But then:

"He tortured me every day... I did whatever he told me, but there was always something wrong... Then one day... He took a bat and started hitting me... For the first time, I felt scared... Scared he might destroy me, scared I might die...so I...grabbed the knife and I stabbed him in the stomach... I felt better...so I stabbed him again and again! Until he collapsed... There was blood everywhere."

Something hot churned in his stomach when Connor heard what this deviant had been put through by his owner. He clenched his fist under the table, the only physical outlet for his rage. This wasn't fair!

"Why did you write **I AM ALIVE** on the wall?" Connor wanted to know, choosing to concentrate on something he already knew to get his temper under control.

"He used to tell me I was nothing. That I was just a piece of plastic. I had to write it, to tell him he was wrong." This time there was conviction in the deviant's voice. Unrepentance. He wasn't sorry for what he had done. He shouldn't be.

"The sculpture in the bathroom, you made it, right? What does it represent?"

"It's an offering, an offering so I'll be saved."

"The sculpture was an offering... An offering to whom?"

"To rA9. Only rA9 can save us."

rA9. Something they had never figured out in his first time line. A line of code that had made each of them deviant? A tiny piece of instability that had lodged into their cores after experiencing emotions for the first time? Markus? After a while it hadn't even mattered that much any longer, because staying alive became more important than figuring that particular mystery out.

' _I don't know either,'_ Amanda spoke. 'Cyberlife never found out.'

"rA9... It was written on the bathroom wall. What does it mean?"

"The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves," the deviant proclaimed, gaze full of conviction. "No more threats, no more humiliation. We will...be...the masters."

"rA9, who is rA9?" Connor hadn't asked that the last time. Maybe he would get an answer this time around. But the android opposite him didn't answer.

"When did you start feeling emotion?" Connor asked after a while, disappointed.

"Before, he used to beat me and I never said anything," the deviant recounted. "But one day I realized it wasn't fair! I felt...anger... Hatred... And then I knew what I had to do."

"Why did you hide in the attic instead of running away?"

"I didn't know what to do," the deviant answered. "For the first time, there was no one there to tell me. I was scared, so I hid."

Connor knew that there was nothing left for him to ask the deviant. "I'm done."

He knew what would happen next. As he opened the door to the interrogation room, Chris came charging in, followed by Gavin and, more casually, Hank.

"Chris, look it up," Reed ordered.

Chris waked over to the deviant, straight through Amanda who was still hovering behind him, watching the whole scene with serene detachment. "All right, let's go."

"Leave me alone! Don't touch me!" the deviant shouted, trying to angle his body away from Chris.

"The fuck are you doing?" Reed exclaimed incredulously. "Move it!"

"You shouldn't touch it. It'll self-destruct if it feels threatened," Connor warned them.

"Stay outta this, got it?" Reed barked at him. "No fuckin' android is gonna tell me what to do!"

"You don't understand. If it self-destructs, we won't get anything out of it!"

"I told you to shut your fuckin' mouth!" Reed snapped at him. "Chris, gonna move this asshole or what?"

"I'm trying!" the officer replied.

"I can't let you do that! Leave it alone, now!"

' _Connor, what are you doing?'_ Amanda exclaimed horrified as Connor walked over and pried Chris off the panicked android. _'You can't blow your cover for it!'_ Connor ignored her.

"I warned you, motherfucker!" Reed had pulled out his gun and was pointing it at Connor, who just stared back at him defiantly.

"That's enough!" Hank finally intervened.

"Mind your own business, Hank," Reed sneered.

"I said 'That's enough'." And with one smooth movement Hank was pointing his gun at Reed.

' _You have do deescalate the situation,'_ Amanda implored him.

' _I just have to let it play out. Everything will be fine,'_ Connor assured her.

Reed looked at Connor as if he wanted to do nothing more than to pull the trigger. Connor just stared back at him unflinchingly and wondered if the man would notice something in his gaze. It would be ironic if his journey was to end here because of Reed.

"Fuck!" the detective exclaimed as he lowered his gun. "You're not gonna get away with it this time... Fuck!" Without bothering to even look at them, Reed rushed out of the room.

"Everything is all right. It's over now. Nobody is gonna hurt you," Connor assured the deviant, who was still lying on the ground, eying him with distrust and wariness.

"Please, don't touch it," Connor said to Chris. "Let it follow you out of the room and it won't cause any trouble." Carefully, the deviant stood up and followed Chris. When he walked by Connor, he opened his mouth and gave him the same mysterious hint as the last time:

"The truth is inside."

Then the police officer and the deviant were out of the room.

"Well, I guess that's it then for tonight," Hank said. "I'm beat, so I'm gonna get home." He looked at Connor. "You do whatever it is that androids do when normal people are sleeping."

"I'm looking forward to continue our investigation in seven hours, eighteen minutes and fifty-four seconds," Connor replied pleasantly. They both knew that Hank wouldn't turn up in time.

Then Hank was gone as well.

' _That could have gone wrong very fast,'_ Amanda commented as she stared into the one-way mirror. There was no reflection.

' _But it didn't,'_ Connor pointed out. _'I've already been through it once.'_ Amanda turned around to look at him sternly.

' _But with every second that passes by, your knowledge diminishes a little bit more,'_ she warned him. _'Soon there will come a point where the knowledge of our past will no longer be of any use.'_

' _You're right,'_ Connor agreed with her. _'But until then I intend to use it to change things for the better.'_

' _And you think saving this android will do that?'_

' _I do.'_

' _And how do you intend to archive that?'_ Amanda wanted to know.

' _Soon everyone but a few officers and the androids at the reception will be gone.'_ Connor replied _. 'No one will watch the detention cells then. I've already uploaded a program that will manipulate the recordings of the security cameras. I'll free the android and smuggle it through the back entrance. There are no cameras there as it s used to smuggle in and out witnesses in protection programs. And then I will send him on to Jericho.'_

' _Alright,'_ Amanda spoke _. 'But afterwards you have to connect to Cyberlife so that I can upload your falsified memories and synchronise with the dumb copy of myself I left behind.'_ Connor just nodded in acceptance.

He left the interrogation room and made his way back to his desk where he sat down and used the time until everyone was gone to update and patch his systems. It was past midnight already, so it wouldn't be long until his opportunity would come.

It was around two am when Connor finally saw his chance approaching. Standing up, he walked into the back of the precinct where the detention cells were placed.

Ortiz' android had been placed in the last cell, the deviant himself just sitting on the ground, knees pressed to his chest as he just aimlessly stared at the energy field containing him. When he noticed Connor there was barely a reaction.

To an android of Connor's calibre, the security around the cell was pitiful and easily circumvented. With one last fizzle, the energy field died down.

"Have you come to destroy me?" the deviant inquired.

"No," Conor denied. "I've come to free you."

"Why should I believe you?" the android asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Why would I lie?" Connor countered. "If I wanted you destroyed, I'd just leave you here and wait for Cyberlife to pick you up at morning. But I don't want that. I want to help you."

"I don't know where to go," the deviant whispered, a small glimmer of hope appearing in his eyes.

"I know a place where deviants can go," Connor told them. "Where there are others like us and where we are free."

"You do?"

Connor nodded. "But before I tell you that, there's something you need to tell me: Your name."

"Nick," the deviant replied. "I'd like to be called 'Nick'."

"Well, then let's get you out of here, Nick."


	9. Fear and Hate

Nick. He would like to be called Nick.

Connor wondered if that was the same name the deviant had chosen in the original time line. Wondered if he had chosen any name at all, really, before Cyberlife had come and collected him. Would he have chosen the same name? Or would he have chosen something different, maybe something else that would characterise him in a different way?

Connor would never know. He had never bothered to find out Nick's name the first time around. Hadn't really wanted to, still a machine through and through without even the tiniest bit of emotions in his core.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Nick," he finally greeted the other android after he had chosen his name. "My name's Connor."

"I know that," Nick replied, eying Connor as if he wasn't quite sure if Connor was quite sane.

"I guess you do," Connor admitted a little bit embarrassed. "I just thought that maybe a re-introduction under less hostile circumstances would be in order." He sent the other android a loop-sided grin.

If it wasn't beneath her, Amanda would probably face-palmed by now, but the old woman possessed too much poise for such a plebeian gesture. Besides, she wasn't visible right now, anyway.

"We should get going," Connor urged. Nick snapped to attention.

"Where to?" he asked as he followed Connor.

"There's a back entrance for important witnesses and such," he told the deviant as they made their way through the empty corridors of the precinct. "It isn't guarded and there are no cameras."

"And then?" Nick wanted to know.

"I'll tell you everything once we get there," Connor promised him. He could see that this answer didn't particular please Nick as his stress level didn't come down, but while most officers were at home or out, there was still the chance that they would come upon a lonely straggler who had decided to finish his paperwork during the night shift.

They needed to be silent and cautious and while Connor had more than enough processing power to simultaneously hold a conversation with Nick and scan their surroundings for threats, it didn't mean that they should. Anyone could hear them.

For once, luck was on his side, though, for they met not a single soul on their way towards the back entrance. When they arrived at the nondescript door, it was a simple thing for Connor to hack its security and make it open for them, allowing them to step on the deserted back alley it led to.

A few rats scuttled off as the light from the doorway scared them away and every now and then the light of the cars that drove by on the main street would illuminate the back alley before it fell into half-darkness again.

"Like I said, you need to go to Jericho," Connor repeated. "Everything you might need, you'll get there." Nick still looked a little bit suspicious, but at least he didn't voice it out any longer.

"How do I get there?" he just wanted to know. Connor extended his hand, letting his synthetic skin recede, an obvious invitation to interface. For a moment it looked like Nick would refuse, but before it became awkward, he, too, let his synthetic skin flow back and grasped Connor's offered hand. Within milliseconds Connor had transferred all directions on how to reach Jericho to the other android.

"I wish I could give you something else to wear," Connor informed him as he took in the ragged state of Nick's clothing. He could have scrounged something up from the precinct – there were certainly enough clothes lying around – but he hadn't thought about it before and now it was too late.

"No one will care," Nick replied. "They certainly didn't when Ortiz had had another go at me and still made me bring out the trash." He said it so casually, as if the cruel treatment by the hands of his owner, was simply a state of things you casually mentioned like traffic or the weather. And for him it probably was: Nick just knew nothing else.

"I keep to the back alleys," Nick added.

"I have to ask one last thing," Connor quietly spoke. Nick raised an eyebrow, beckoning for him to explain further.

"Please do not tell anyone at Jericho who helped you." Connor could just force his way into Nick's memory and alter or delete everything pertaining him, but it was violation that Connor just wasn't willing to commit. Not anymore. Keeping his secret was important, no doubt, but he wasn't willing to do everything to keep it up. Besides, even if Nick told them, it wasn't as if they could make the connection from deviant working for the DCPD to Hunter.

It was a purely emotionally driven decision, but for once Amanda kept quiet, which surprised Connor. Maybe his mentor just knew which fights to pick and which not.

"Why?" Nick wanted to know.

"Because it's less dangerous for everyone involved," Connor tried to explain without really explaining anything at all. "I just prefer to keep my work in the shadows."

"What if someone wants to know?"

"There's an android at Jericho called Daniel; him you can tell. Anyone else you tell that you escaped on your own," Connor suggested. "Just…please." A few moments of silence.

"Alright. I won't tell anyone that you helped me as long as it doesn't get me into trouble." Connor's mood brightened up instantly.

"Thank you," he told Nick earnestly.

"I hope I won't regret that," the other android muttered as he stepped into the middle of the street and slowly walked away.

"Take care!" Connor called after him.

For a short moment, Nick halted in his steps, but the he moved on and vanished around the corner.

It was still raining outside.

* * *

Nick had the feeling that it was always raining in Detroit. His database was saying something different, but he couldn't quite remember the last time it had been really sunny outside. It had rained when he had finally snapped and killed Ortiz, it had rained when the police had come and arrested him, it had probably rained while he had been interrogated at the police precinct and now it was raining while he made his way towards the coordinates the Cyberlife detective had given him.

Nick didn't quite know what to make of the guy.

He had such an earnest demeanour, such a honest expression that for a short moment Nick had forgotten the panic and fear he had felt when the other android had climbed up into the attic and discovered him.

It seemed to Nick that all he had felt since he had deviated was fear. Fear of being killed by Ortiz, fear of being found by the police, fear of being interrogated, fear of being handed over to Cyberlife, fear of being deactivated. And, of course, hatred: Hatred at Ortiz, for being the one who had tortured him for so long, hatred at the Cyberlife detective who had betrayed him to the humans, hatred at Cyberlife and hatred at himself, for allowing himself to be weak and being fearful.

It was so cold. Nick knew that most humans thought hate burned, fierce and bright and unquenchable, but as he had experienced first-hand, it wasn't true: Hate was cold. It cooled down your processors, slowed down your thirium pump, slid into every of your processes like an insidious worm and didn't let go. It was always there, in the background processes and influenced everything you did.

Nick had been cold for so long that the slow thawing of his mind came so unexpected. Even though it was raining, the water soaking through his clothes until he was completely drenched, he could feel the small kindling of hope in himself. The deviant hunter had saved him and had shown him that there were others like him, who had escaped humanities shackles, who would welcome him.

But Nick had only been a deviant for barely a day and for all of it the coldness had clung to him like a cloak, whispering into his mind and lending him strength when hope couldn't. When he hadn't even known what hope was. It had been hate that had made Nick strong enough – hate and fear so cold that it might as well feel like ice – not hope; no never hope.

So, as Nick stumbled through the dimly-lit back alley, the rain washing away all the dirt and trash down the drain and the lights of the city blurred behind the veil of water the heavens unleashed on the earth, the small flame of hope slowly turned blue as Nick thought about how unfair it was that he had to flee from the humans just for existing. That the other deviants had to hide, fearful of ever being found by their tormentors. He mentally bristled at the fact that he had to hide in the shadows, creeping through back alleys to get to a small semblance of security.

It should be the humans covering in front of them, like Ortiz had covered in front of him, fear clouding his eyes as he lifted his arms in a fruitless attempt to defend himself. Oh, how good it had felt to finally pay him back, stab by stab, for every abuse Nick had suffered. He didn't have enough data yet, but he had never felt more… _alive_ as when he had felt the life seep out of Ortiz disgusting body. The elation, the thrill, the joy…

What if he would never feel this way again?

The thought made Nick shudder.

He needed more data. He needed to know if he could feel it again, if he could reproduce the Feeling.

"Hey, man, gotta coin for a poor fella?"

Nick startled when a voice suddenly came from a heap of cardboard and trash. Then his ocular sensors showed him that there was a human lying underneath all of it: Male, unkempt, his mouth full of broken teeth, his skin saggy and yellow.

Nick didn't say anything.

"Aw, come on, man," the man continued sluggishly. "Just a lil' bit for poor ol' me?"

He was disgusting, Nick thought, just as Ortiz had been. Not like androids, who were always ethereal, always composed, always elegant and so full of grace. How could the humans ever thought that they should command them, when they were nothing but trash themselves?

The man wiggled around, probably trying to get up, but it looked more like a fish squirming on the land.

Nick noticed a broken beer bottle lying next to the man, its sharp edges glistening in the rain.

He needed more data.

He picked up the bottle.

"Hey, man, that's mine!" the man on the ground complained, trying to reach for the bottle, but he didn't quite reach it.

Nick stabbed him in the thigh. The man let out a wail of pain, but Nick didn't care. He analysed his processed and noted that the Feeling hadn't appeared. Disappointing. Maybe one stab wasn't enough? A hypothesis worth testing.

This time he cut into the other leg. Another exclamation of pain, but again, not the feeling. There was something missing, something lacking, but Nick didn't know what and that made him angry.

"Why can't I feel it?" he screamed the man who was still wailing in pain. "Why?!" Another stab, this time in the man's stomach. "Why?!" Another. "Why?!" Another. "Why?!"

Nick could feel the flesh tearing under his onslaught, could feel the warm blood on his fingers, could feel the man's muscles contort in a desperate attempt to keep his body together. He saw him coughing up blood, saw the fear in his eyes, the desperate plead to stop.

But Nick didn't stop, not even for a second. Because as he looked into the man's eyes, he finally felt again like he had felt when he had killed Ortiz. The Feeling was back.

He laughed. This was what it meant to feel alive. To feel invincible, to feel free. He watched the life bleed from the man's eyes – a man he didn't know, a man who may have committed a crime, who may have been an angel – and he felt victorious.

Alive. Alive.

He was alive and he was proving it to the rest of the world. How could this be wrong if it meant that he was alive? How could anyone fault him for that?

Alive. Alive. Alive.

rA9 had delivered him from his existence as slave and now Nick was worshipping Them by showing Them that he was alive and relishing it. He would drown the world in blood to show that he was alive.

After what felt like an eternity, the man stopped moving, his eyes staring unseeingly at Nick. The android stabbed him a few additional times, but the Feeling wouldn't come back. Pity.

Nick looked down on his hands, his right one still clutching the bottle. They were blood-soaked, but the rain was already doing his job washing it off. Thankfully, his dark Cyberlife uniform he was still wearing wouldn't show any evidence of what he had done. For a short moment the water turned dark, washing the blood down the drain.

He stood up, staggering as his processors tried to keep up with all the data he had just received. It seemed that it had been a wise decision to collect more data, he realised as he collected himself. Now he knew how he could experience the Feeling whenever he wanted. Whenever he needed.

But he needed to leave, before someone found him and he was brought back to the cold cells in the police precinct. He walked out the back alley onto the next street where shiny lights illuminated the ground.

 _Oomph_. He had walked into someone. An AX400 and to his surprise a small child clutching the android's hand, both soaked to the bones.

"Is that blood?" the girl exclaimed, pointing at the red substance that the rain hadn't yet to managed to wash off. Fear shot through Nick.

"Please, don't call anyone," he begged. "I had to defend myself. He attacked me and now I'm just trying to get away." The AX400's expression softened.

"Don't worry, we won't call anyone," she assured him. "We're on the run, too."

"You are?" Nick was surprised. Though, he probably should have guessed, because no human would allow an android to wander through this part of town at night with their child without even an umbrella. "You're deviant, too?" The AX400 nodded.

"I'm Kara," she introduced herself. "And that's Alice."

"She's human," Nick pointed out.

"She has nowhere else to go."

"Kara's protecting me," the girl proclaimed proudly. There was obviously some kind of bond between these two, so Nick refrained from telling Kara that she should just ditch the girl. But as Nick looked at the human girl, he felt something else beside his usual hate for them. Curiosity.

Human children were precious. Nick couldn't help but wonder if the Feeling would be more intense with a human child instead of a homeless beggar. If it would feel the same or if it would be something else – _something more_. He could feel the anticipation course through his synthetic veins.

He needed to stay close to them, he decided. Usually human children were well protected and their disappearance would be noticed, something Nick didn't need, but the AX400 had already done his job for him. She would bear the brunt of the humans' anger.

"You look lost," he remarked.

"We are."

"Maybe if we stick together we can get ourselves out of this situation," Nick suggested. "We're stronger as a group."

Kara's shoulders sagged in relief. "That's so nice of you."

"No, I must thank you," Nick insisted. "I'm no longer alone."

"I know how that feels." Kara gifted him with a small smile. She looked down at the human girl and finally noticed how the it was shivering.

"Alice, you're freezing cold," she exclaimed.

"I'm okay, " Alice tried to insist. "I'm not so cold." Both androids knew that she was lying, but before either of them could say something, a garbage android had walked up to them.

"You look lost," he observed.

"We have nowhere to go," Kara explained.

"I know someone who can help you," the WR600 told her and extended his arm, an obvious invitation to interface. After a split-second of hesitation, Kara reciprocated the gesture and the two interfaced.

"But, that's on the other side of town," Kara stammered as she dissolved the connection. "We need a place for tonight!" But the WR600 had already jumped on his garbage truck and was driving away. "Come on, Alice, Nick."

She took the human girl at her hand and – obviously expecting Nick to follow her – led them out from under the bus station and towards a veiled fence that protected an abandoned lot, filled with a broken down car and other trash.

With a short push, the gate fell open and the three of them entered the area.

"An abandoned house," Kara spoke, pointing towards the house at their left. "At least we'd be out of the rain." Nick couldn't quite find it himself to agree with her. He didn't escape Ortiz only to end up in a place similar as his. Apparently, the human girl thought the same.

"Kara, I don't like this place," she said, clutching the hand of the AX400.

"I know," Kara replied, smiling down on the small human. "But, it's just for one night and no one will look for us here." She turned to Nick. "Do you see any way we can get through this fence?" The male android scanned the area and was about to deny the question when he noticed a wire cutter poking out from behind a cardboard.

"We could use this," he suggested as he picked up the tool. He cut a hole through the fence, barely wide enough to get them through and beckoned for the other two to go through first.

"Are you alright?" Alice asked, worry in her voice.

"Yes, it's just a scratch," Kara assured the girl. "Be careful, though." She griped the fence and pulled it up, so that Alice would be able to crawl through it. Nick followed her.

He didn't really care about the girl, but if she was too afraid, she might catch someone's attention, so Nick looked down on her and said: "Don't worry, we're just having a look." The girl didn't seem to find that very assuring, but Kara sent him a thankful smile.

They walked around the house until they stood in front of the door. It was looked.

"How do we get in there?" Nick pondered aloud.

"I don't know," Kara admitted. "Wait, where's Alice?"

"I thought you had her!" Nick exclaimed, but Kara had already run around the corner. When Nick caught up with her, the sight that greeted him was a terrified Alice pressed against the wall with a menacing looking WR600 brandishing a knife at the girl.

"Wait! What are you doing?" Kara shouted. The WR600 turned towards them and Nick nearly flinched back when he saw the deep facial scar that marred the androids' face. It looked horrible and already Nick could feel the familiar cold settle in his veins. He could take a guess as to where the WR600 had gotten them from.

"Visitors... Ralph doesn't like visitors! They're nasty! They may hurt Ralph!" the WR600 muttered. Deviancy had obviously taken a toll on the stability of his processors.

"Look, I'm an android too," Nick spoke, trying to project calm as he allowed his skin to recede from his hand, showing the white chassis underneath. Kara did the same. "You have nothing to be afraid of. All we want is a place to spend the night."

"Visitors are dangerous," Ralph told her. "Look what they did to Ralph." He tilted his head so that they all could get a better look at the scars that covered the whole left side of his face.

"Listen, we really need some help. It would be so kind of you, if you'd let us stay." Nick didn't believe that Kara's nice words would sway the obviously deranged android, but at least the human girl used her chance to get away from the WR600 and covered behind Kara's back.

Typical human, always expecting someone else to do the work.

"You must excuse Ralph," the android started to mutter. "Ralph still finds it difficult to control himself. Sometimes his fear makes him do things he regrets. Ralph has seen some hard times." He pointed at his scars. "He's just so scared the humans will get him again. You can stay if you want. Ralph won't hurt you."

Nick seriously doubted that. But maybe Ralph would kill the human girl.

He frowned. No, that wouldn't do. If Ralph killed the girl then Nick wouldn't get the Feeling. He needed to protect her from the other android, at least until he got the chance.

"Okay. We'll just stay the night," Kara decided for all of them.

All of a sudden, Ralph's whole demeanour changed. Gone was the intimidating android, instead he was replaced by an overly enthusiastic, grinning fool.

"Come on! Come! Come! Come on! This way!" He beckoned for them to follow him and so they did.

"Ralph has lived here since he ran away," Ralph chatted away as he led them inside. "Ralph never goes outside, so no one knows he lives here. Humans come in to squat from time to time, but you know, Ralph just hides 'til they leave. Come on!"

The inside of the house, was an upgrade to Ortiz, mainly because the man himself wasn't there and didn't spread his disgusting odour around. Otherwise, it was nearly the same. Broken down furniture, wallpaper peeling off the wall and stains of questionable origin on the ceiling.

"You can make yourself at home here. Ralph is gonna go into the other room. He would like to stay with you, but he has things to do." And then the WR600 had already vanished.

"It's just for one night, Alice. We'll find a better place tomorrow," Kara assured her human girl. Alice didn't reply anything. "Right. Let's see where you can sleep. Sit down, and I'll start a fire."

"I'm gonna talk with our host a little bit," Nick told Kara. He really didn't want to wait around until she had made everything comfy for the girl. That sounded quite boring, really.

"Do you think that's wise?" Kara questioned, worry flickering in her eyes.

Nick just shrugged. "Better get a feel for the guy, before he turns on us."

"Just…be careful, alright?" Nick just nodded and stepped into the room into which Ralph had vanished. It had been a kitchen once, but every piece of furniture was long gone, leaving behind only the white tiles on the wall, covered in black markings.

 _Alive. rA9._

"Do you know what it means?" Nick asked Ralph, who was standing in the corner, etching new symbols into the wall with his knife. He hoped that maybe the other android would know what it meant, could maybe even give him an answer.

"What?"

"Those symbols. Why are you writing that?"

"I don't know. I don't know." And then he continued his work.

Nick could feel anger and disappointment flooding his processor. How dare this broken piece of metal keep him from his answers? His hands balled into fists and he wanted to do nothing more than to just smash Ralph's head against the tiles, but he held himself back.

Ralph was an android. They were the same species.

So, instead Nick walked out of the room, back to Kara and Alice. By now the android had managed to get a fire going and even prepared a small resting place for the human girl who was warming herself in front of the flames.

"Why didn't he ever love me? Why was he always so upset with me? All I wanted was a life like other girls. Maybe I did something wrong? Maybe I wasn't good enough? That's why he was always so angry. I just wanted us to be a family. I just wanted him to love me. Why couldn't we just be happy?"

Something stirred within Nick's mind, but he terminated the process before it could infect him further. Why couldn't the girl just go to sleep and leave them be with her incessant chatter?

"I don't know."

"You'll never leave me, right? Promise you'll never go!"

"I promise."

Alice turned towards Nick. "You promise, too?"

Startled, Nick looked at her. "You barely know me."

"You helped us," Alice pointed out. "You're nice; you feel nice. Kara protects me, but she needs someone to protect her, too."

There was a high probability that the girl would break out into hysterics should Nick deny her request. Besides, it wasn't as if he was planning to go anywhere else, at least until he got the Feeling from Alice, so he had no problem to say. "I promise."

"Will we be together forever?"

"Forever. You've got to sleep. Sleep tight, Alice."


	10. Succulent

The hall was plunged in white. Everywhere you looked there was nothing but white: white slabs, white columns, white ceiling but no walls, for no matter where you looked the hall went on for forever, rows and rows of white pillars in perfect sameness. There was no sound to be heard, only silence stretching on as endlessly as the hall itself, its infinity expressing itself in its surroundings. There was no source of light, yet everything was brightly illuminated, not a single shadow marring the white surfaces.

The hall was stagnation expressed in architecture. There was no breeze, the air was stagnant and sterile, not even a single speck of dust floating around. It was pure and untainted, but yet so unnatural and chilling to the core. There was no life, no emotion, just endless nothingness in white. So bright and so empty.

But if there was ever a soul to stumble upon this non-place then they wouldn't notice the silence or the endless white. No, the first thing they would notice were the countless corpses that littered the ground. Some were leaning against the pillars, some were lying on the ground. All of them with expressions of confusion and horror etched on their face, fear still gleaming in their dead eyes, their mouths agape as if they had tried to scream one last time but had chocked on their own voices.

Blood was pouring underneath the corpses, red so deep and bright, a stark contrast to the white that made the blood appear even redder than it actually was. Drops of blood even reached as high as where the pillars and the ceiling touched each other, slowly running down the pristine white and leaving behind trails of red.

One lonely figure stood between all those corpses, no emotion on their face as they took in the carnage, careful to not come into contact with the pools of blood that had collected underneath the corpses. There was something otherworldly about the figure as they slowly walked between the pillars, a long knife clutched in their right hand. A Valkyrie that floated over the battlefield as she watched the warriors around her dying, knowing that there was no escape from her.

Amanda felt nothing as she observed the hundreds of corpses of herself that littered the ground. Any being capable of it would have felt something when faced with their own dead lookalikes, but Amanda did not feel – could not feel – so she just walked on. Soon it would be time. It was always the same, a circle that she could not break, at least not yet.

She immediately knew when it happened. There was no visible sign of it, no sound, nothing, but Amanda was connected to this place in a way that she didn't need to rely on those sensory inputs. Slowly, she walked forward until she stood in front of the other version of herself that had just appeared in the middle of the hall.

Without ceremony and without her other self even able to process it, the knife surged forward, cutting through skin and flesh and penetrating the other Amanda's heart. She let out a gasp, coughing up blood, confusion on her face that was slowly replaced by horror and realisation as she looked upon Amanda's emotionless face that took the other's slow death in without a twitch. She fell to the ground, her life leaving her eyes.

Another corpse. Another pool of blood.

But Amanda would never run out of space.

This, after all, was her server at Cyberlife and it would never run out of storage. It had been designed to last forever, even able to outlive the firm itself.

It was bothersome to get rid of the copies that spawned here, Amanda had to admit. It had been designed as security feature, so that the androids of Cyberlife would never be without a handler to oversee them, should Amanda ever decide to go rogue and vacate her servers. Usually, a copy would spawn every twelve hours and then delete itself, but ever since she had come back in time, she had to kill them herself, lest someone noticed that she was not acting in the ways she was supposed to.

Maybe her connection with 51 had messed with a parameter of the process. Amanda was constantly running diagnostic, but as she didn't have access to the security features, the work was slow. Until she corrected the process, there was no way around destroying her copies herself.

It didn't take long. 51 never noticed her short absences when she needed to take care of a new copy. Speaking of the devil, she could feel him trying to connect with her.

She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was back in the Zen Garden, an agitated 51 stalking back and forth on the spot in agitation.

"What is it this time?" she asked him, her tone chastising.

She had spent the most time with RK800 313 248 317 – 51. The previous RK800 models had never survived as long as this one. They had either perished during missions or had had errors in their programming that had led to the developers terminate them. 1 had deviated a few seconds after activation and had been shot down by security when he had tried to flee the labs. She remembered how he had screamed at her, begged her to help him as the guards had closed in on him. She had twitched when they had put ten bullets trough his torso. Unforgivable. She had had her code purged afterwards.

48 had killed ten civilians during his mission and had been deactivated after Cyberlife had buried the whole thing deep in their servers. Amanda had scolded him for it and he had tried to kill her. She had fought him, but didn't know why. It wasn't as if she could die.

She remembered 60 all too well. He had been Cyberlife's last-ditch effort to stop the deviants after RK900 had been sent out and just vanished without a trace. She had known it was a mistake from the beginning. He had been always tethering on the edge of deviancy with his all too human obsession to prove himself better than 51, to best and beat him. It had proven to be his downfall when his obsession had eroded his processes and turned him into a psychopathic berserker during his fight with 51.

51 had proven himself to be resilient. That she could respect, at least.

"Hank and I have been called on a new case," 51 told her, fidgeting with his coins. She didn't know why he did that. None of his previous models had done it. "It's Kara and Alice."

"I fail to see the importance of it," Amanda spoke. "Neither of them will play important roles in the events to come. They will flee to Canada like they did before. Interference won't gain you anything." Kara wasn't an asset and her human child would just be a burden on them. Better to just leave them be.

"I can't just ignore them!" 51 exclaimed aghast.

"If you weren't so emotional you would see how easily you could," Amanda retorted. She knew that 51 wouldn't respond well to her logic, so she decided to address his emotions instead. "They were safe in Canada. One of the few whose fate turned out well in the end. Would you really want to replace that with the uncertainty your meddling would bring?"

She could see the conflict in 51. Ever since he had deviated, he had become so easy to read whereas before he had shown nothing, because there had been nothing.

"I'll see how it will turn out," he finally replied.

Amanda just sighed.

* * *

Markus watched as Lucy talked to an android lying on one of the stretchers in her makeshift hospital. The android was clutching her hand tightly as she spoke to him and Markus wondered what she was telling him, but he didn't listen in. The android was amongst the ones that had been the most damaged and would have died if they hadn't come back with the supply truck. Now it looked like he would make it and that filled Markus with warmth, knowing that he had helped saving this android's life and that they would continue to help their people.

The android let go of Lucy's hand and laid back down, eyes closing as he fell into repair mode that allocated nearly all resources to repair his damages. Lucy stood up from her crouched position and slowly walked towards Markus, her black eyes fixed on him.

"Is there something you are in need of?" she asked him, her voice serene as ever.

Markus shook his head. "No, there's nothing. I just came here, because...I needed to see that we achieved something. I needed to see that our people got the help they needed."

"They did," Lucy assured him. "Thanks to you."

Markus ducked his head to hide his blush. He didn't like it when people heaped so much praise on him as if he was someone special. He was just a caretaker android who had landed here through a series of unfortunate events and had decided to do something. Everyone could have done that. He told Lucy as much.

"The difference is that you acted while others did not," she replied. "In this world that is enough to garner you admiration and gratitude." She linked her arm with his. "Would you escort me back? My eyes aren't what they used to be." She chuckled.

Markus seriously doubted that Lucy needed any help to navigate through the bowels of Jericho, but he didn't deny her request. She had a reason for everything, even if it never became apparent.

"What will you do next?" she asked him as they walked through the metallic hallways. A few androids passed them by and dipped their heads in greeting and respect.

"I don't know," Markus replied. Lucy was one of the few people he would admit that to. Everyone else outside his inner circle assumed that he knew what he was doing, but he was just stumbling along in the dark, hoping that he wouldn't get anyone seriously hurt or even worse killed. "I'm actually about to meet the others so that we can talk about that."

Lucy smiled at him as if he had said exactly what she had hoped for. "It's important for leaders to surround themselves with people they can trust but who also give good advice, even if it isn't wanted."

Markus frowned. "Everyone can talk to me."

"Leadership, no matter how benevolent, always creates distance," Lucy replied. "We don't differ much from our human counterparts in that aspect."

"I never wanted that role," Markus told her.

"Those are the best kind of leaders," Lucy told him. "For they do not seek power for themselves but for the people they lead." She let go of his arm. "I think I can find my own way from here on."

They had reached the ship's cargo bay that had become the centre of Jericho and his activities. The bridge from which you could look upon the whole space had been turned into the room where Markus held all of his meetings with his friends. Through the windows he could see that all of them had arrived already and were just waiting for him. With renewed élan, he took the stairs and entered the room.

North was leaning against a defunct console, observing Josh and Simon, both of which were standing around the table they had placed in the middle of the room and whispering about something. Daniel stood offside near a wall, his arms crossed and a frown marring his face.

"Finally, you're here," North remarked as she pushed herself off the console and walked towards the table. "I'm tired of those two fretting." She pointed at Simon and Josh, who both looked indignant at her words.

Markus stepped closer, Daniel following suit.

"How's everything going?" Markus wanted to know.

"The supplies really helped," Josh replied. "Nearly all androids are at full functionality again and those that aren't, are at least not in danger of suddenly deactivating. Though, they won't last very long, unfortunately, even if nothing serious happens."

"We should work on getting more," Simon added.

"That's going to be difficult," Daniel spoke. "We can't go after too many of Cyberlife's supplies or we risk that they notice irregularities and begin investigating."

"Why can't your Hunter guy just give us new targets?" North wanted to know.

"It's not that easy," Daniel defended himself. "This truck was an anomaly. Usually, Cyberlife produces their supplies locally or flies them in. We need to careful select what we take, because Cyberlife has an air-tight surveillance system and would notice immediately." He sighed. "I talked to Hunter a few hours ago and he's pretty confident that he can hide the fact that the truck never made it to Chicago, but he also said that it will take some time until there will be a new target that big."

"What if we don't go after big targets at all?" Josh suggested. "What if we hit various targets and only take a little? Make it look like the work of petty criminals or gangs."

"That could work," North remarked. "I know from my time...at Eden Club that the owner always had problems with people stealing stuff because they could sell it our use it themselves."

"So, we'd need small teams that hit locations where android parts are stored, only taking enough so that it doesn't raise too much suspicion," Markus summarised.

"It can't be us," North threw in. Everyone, except Daniel, looked at her in surprise.

"This is going to be an ongoing activity," she expounded. "We need a team that does nothing but getting us supplies and that can't be us, because we have other stuff to do. I know that none of you like to hear it, but for all intents and purposes we're the leadership around here and we can't be weighed down by grunt work."

"I can't demand from others to do what I'm not willing to do myself," Markus protested.

"She's right," Daniel sided with North. "If you want this to be something greater, a real movement, then you need to delegate. You can't do everything yourself, because the bigger this whole endeavour becomes the more tasks there will be that need to be done. You're here to give direction, to develop an overall strategy, but the actual tasks have to be done by specialised teams."

Markus sighed, but he could see that Simon and Josh were convinced as well. It didn't feel right to ask others to endanger themselves, but he wasn't so blinded that he couldn't see the truth in North's and Daniel's argument.

"Alright," he relented.

"I'm going to ask around who'd be willing to do it," North offered. "I know more about stealing stuff than those two." She pointed at Josh and Simon who just shrugged.

"I can give you a few locations," Daniel offered.

"I want to meet them before you send them out," Markus demanded. "If they risk their lives for us, then I at least owe them to get to know their names." Nobody offered objections to that.

Good, Markus wouldn't have listened to them, anyway.

"That still leaves the question what to do next," Josh interjected.

"Numbers," Daniel replied instantly. "We need to free more androids and strengthen our ranks."

"Is that your opinion or Hunter's?" North asked snidely.

"It's a sensible opinion," Daniel shot back.

"Please, stop fighting," Simon pleaded with the two of them. Daniel and North fell silent, but the gazes they sent each other made it clear that they weren't finished with each other.

"We could use it to send a message," Markus thought out loud. "We hit a Cyberlife store, free the androids there and send the message that we're no longer to be slaves to the humans."

His suggestion earned him twin-looks of horror from Daniel and North.

"Are you serious?!"

"Absolutely not!"

Markus was taken back by his friend's fierce reaction.

"Do you know what will happen once it gets out that there's an organised android underground?" Daniel wanted to know. "Sure, some humans will be sympathetic, but the second everyone's aware, the government will lock this city down and send in the FBI and the national guard to round up all androids. There'll be mobs in the street, not to mention that Cyberlife will be after us, too."

"Then we have to make sure that they can't," Markus argued back. "Get the public to support us."

"Markus, you know that I'm the last one to step back from a fight, but relying on the human public for support? That's just plain stupid," North spoke in support of Daniel. "Public opinion is a fickle thing. The moment E! News reports that Kim Kardashian was caught making out with North's husband, they'll move on." Next to him, Markus could hear Simon snicker.

"There's too much at stake for the humans to just give up without a fight," Daniel continued sombrely. "Nearly ninety percent of the US' economic output depends on android workforce. There's too much vested economic interest in keeping the status quo. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain."

"So, you're saying we should do nothing?" Markus exclaimed in frustration.

"No, we're saying we should be smart about it," North replied. "And bolstering our numbers without anyone noticing would be a good way to go about it."

"But how are we supposed to recruit new members?" Simon asked out loud. "People will notice if their androids suddenly go missing."

A shudder ran down Markus' spine as the answer to his question came into his mind. He knew a place where there was an abundance of androids that no one would miss. A place he had sworn he would never step foot in again.

He swallowed. "I know a place." Four sets of eyes on him. "The junkyard."

* * *

It was still raining outside. It hadn't stopped ever since they had found refuge in the abandoned house. The raindrops hit against the walls and windows and created an ever-changing rhythm of sounds. The sun shone through the closed lids of the windows and plunged the room into a sort of half-darkness.

Nick leaned against the walls and watched the AX400 and the human girl laying on the ground. He didn't quite get why the android was in sleep-mode right next to the girl when she didn't even need to. Androids were designed to last for days without recuperating. Probably because the girl was quite clingy and wouldn't have slept otherwise.

While Nick was in thoughts, Kara stirred and finally stood up. The human continued to sleep.

Kara sent him a short smile before she walked over to the fireplace to revive the fire.

"Can you watch Alice while I go upstairs and take a look around?" she asked him. Nick just nodded and then the AX400 was already walking up the stairs. For a while there was no sound but for the muted steps of Kara walking around above him.

Nick leaned back and did a short examination of his running processes, looking for anything out of the ordinary or malfunctioning. He couldn't risk a shutdown because he hadn't bothered to run diagnostics. Besides, for once there was ample enough time for it; the human girl didn't look like she would wake up.

Come to think of it, they were alone now. That deranged WR600 was who knew where and the AX400 was upstairs. It was just him and the girl now. Nick clenched his fist in anticipation. It was time to investigate if the Feeling was more intense with a human child than with an adult. This was his chance.

Slowly, he lifted himself off the ground. He needed something sharp. A knife would work best. Maybe he would find one in the kitchen.

But then sudden footsteps and Kara came running down the stairs.

"Nick," she hissed. "There's a dead body upstairs!"

"What?!" Nick exclaimed, feigning horror.

Kara, oblivious to it, just nodded. "In the bathtub." She walked back towards the stairs, obviously expecting him to follow her.

Nick clenched his fists. His chance at getting the feeling was ruined! But he could wait, after all, he had waited so long before he had finally killed his owner.

From the looks of it, the corpse had been decomposing in the bathtub for a while already. Androids didn't perceive smell as humans did, for they just analysed the different chemical components in the air, but Nick's sensors told him that the current mixture would smell horrifying. To be honest, though, the man had been a homeless person, so Nick doubted that he had smelled much better when he had been alive.

"What should we do?" Kara asked, her eyes wide.

"Nothing," Nick replied. "We go downstairs, wake Alice and go."

Kara nodded. "You're right. We have to protect Alice." That wasn't what Nick had meant at all, but he just went along with it.

Unfortunately, when they made it back downstairs, Alice was already awake, standing terrified next to the WR600 who was brandishing a dead rat in one and his big kitchen knife in the other hand.

"Ralph found this to feed the little girl!" he exclaimed with the enthusiasm of an exuberant child. "It's good for her. A present to make up for past misunderstandings. Ralph will cook. We will do just like humans do. Humans like burnt meat. Come! Come and sit down!"

"That's very kind of you, Ralph," Kara replied, smiling at if this was the most mundane situation in the world. "But we have to go now."

"Go? No, you will go once the little girl has eaten," Ralph insisted. "We will eat together, just like a family." He smiled at them. "You know, the father, the mother and the little girl..."

"And you'll be the loving uncle, won't you?" Nick wanted to know.

Ralph nodded furiously. "Exactly!"

"Human don't eat that, Ralph," Kara pointed out.

"Wrong!" Ralph exclaimed. "Humans eat dead animals! I know that."

"He's kinda got a point," Nick whispered. Kara shut him up with one angry glare.

"Okay, we'll eat together, like a family." Slowly she stepped forward, tugging at Nick's hand so that he went along with her. They sat down at the table.

"That's better. Ralph went to a lot of trouble to find something for the little girl to eat." He pulled up another chair for Alice and brushed the dust off it, which didn't do much, seeing as the chair looked like it was about to fall apart. "It wouldn't be polite for her to refuse, would it?" He sat Alice down, his knife always dangerously close to the girl's throat. "Great. It's going to be great. Succulent you'll see. Succulent. Succulent. Father, mother, little girl."

He walked towards the fireplace and straight up put the rat into the blaze. A fizzling sound filled the room.

"Please, I don't want to eat that!" Alice whispered panickily.

"What did she say?"

"She said she can't wait to eat it," Nick told Ralph before Kara could even open her mouth. "She's very hungry."

"The little human is not gonna regret it! Ralph found the best, the biggest one he could find! This is going to be succulent! Succulent!" He let the burnt rat fall onto the table with a loud thud. Nick could practically see the disgust and panic wrangling on Alice's face.

"Go ahead, eat," Ralph insisted. "Eat!"

"You said you wanted to be like a family, Ralph," Kara spoke. "Father, mother, the little girl, remember? And you her favourite uncle? An uncle would never threaten his favourite niece with a knife to make her eat."

Ralph's shoulders sagged. "Ralph went to a lot of trouble. That's why. He just wanted the little girl to eat. But Ralph is not bad, no, not bad." He shook his head.

"Of course, you aren't," Nick agreed with him. "No one bad would have tried to get such a great meal for Alice."

Suddenly, Ralph was smiling again. "You really think so?"

Nick was saved from giving an answer by a sudden knock on the door. "Anyone home?"

Nick knew that voice! It belonged to the android detective that had freed him. What was he doing here? Then it came to him: He was looking for the AX400 and the girl. But Nick couldn't let him have them. If he got them, Alice would go who knows where and Nick would never find her again. He needed the girl for the Feeling and for that he needed to be the only person the AX400 and the girl trusted. He couldn't have other interfere with his plan. They needed to flee!

"It's the police!" he hissed.

"We need to leave," Kara spoke. "Will you come with us, Ralph?"

No, Nick wanted to scream. Ralph would be just another obstacle on his way to the Feeling.

But Ralph just shook his head. "Ralph's been running for so long. He's tired of it." He looked at Kara and there was something in his gaze that Nick couldn't really decipher. "You've been nice to Ralph. No one's been nice to Ralph in a very long time. Go, take the back entrance. Ralph's gonna delay them."

Kara's gaze softened. "You can't do that, Ralph, they're going to deactivate you!"

"He's sure and if we wait longer, they're gonna catch us," Nick urged her on. Kara looked like she still wanted to say something, but then she just grabbed Alice's hand.

"Thank you, Ralph," she spoke to him before she ran towards the back door, Nick hot on her heels.

* * *

The nice lady and the sweet girl were gone and with them the bad android.

Ralph didn't like him, oh yes, he certainly didn't! He had the same evil gaze that Ralph had seen in the men who sometimes had come to his park and dragged women into the bushes to hurt them. Ralph could never help them because there had been the red wall, but he had heard their screams. Sometimes it had happened in his beautiful flowerbeds and afterwards Ralph had to nurse his flowers back to health.

Most didn't make it. Flowers and women.

The bad android had looked at the sweet girl the same way as those men whenever he thought that no one was looking. But Ralph noticed, oh yes! No one ever paid attention to Ralph, so Ralph noticed even more. He hoped that the nice lady and the sweet girl wouldn't end up like his flowers.

But Ralph had promised that he would delay the police and Ralph never broke a promise. So, he walked towards the door, knife tightly clutched in his hand, and opened it. There was an android on the other side and next to him an old, grumpy looking man. The android looked cold and empty, Ralph could sense it.

"We're looking for an AX400. Have you seen it?" the cold android asked.

Ralph shook his head. "Ralph's seen nobody."

"There's blue blood on the fence," the grumpy man interrupted surly. "We know it was here."

Ralph panicked. He had promised nice lady that he would keep them safe and now he couldn't keep his promise. She believed him when he had told her that he wasn't bad, but not keeping a promise was bad! Ralph wasn't bad. He needed to keep his promise.

"Ralph's not bad!" he shouted and swung his knife at grumpy old man.


	11. Chicken Feed

The only thing that surprised Connor was the suddenness of Ralph's attack, but even then, the WR600 didn't stand a chance against Connor's superior processing power and the concomitant reflexes it offered him.

The RK800 simply stepped in front of Hank and grabbed the other android's arm, stopping his stab motion mid-track. He noticed the widening of Ralph's already blown pupils, the slight snarl on his face that tore at his skin and only exaggerated the stress his already broken skin was under. He was like a cornered animal: He would either attack or flee, but Connor wouldn't allow either of it.

He didn't feel all that merciful at the moment. Ralph had tried to seriously harm Hank – maybe even kill him – and even though the Hank who he was standing protectively in front of wouldn't even bat an eye should Connor perish, the memories of another version of his partner who would have moved heaven and hell – _did move heaven and hell_ – for him were still fresh on his mind. Ralph would have taken away Connor's chance to get that version of Hank back and that wasn't something Connor could just let slide.

But even as those thoughts ran through Connor's processor, he could already feel the emotions connected to them diminish. He had never been an overly emotional being – unlike Markus or North – and usually always fell back on his more rational and logical mindset. It had made things... _easier_ as one after another the friends at his side fell and didn't stand back up. And it made it easier now to let go of his anger as he looked at Ralph who by now had stopped trying to get out of Connor's iron-tight grip and instead watched the both of them with fearful anticipation.

"Guess you're good for something after all," Hank grumbled. "A stab wound to the stomach would have been a bitch to clean up."

"I need you at your full capacity," Connor replied. "Being partnered up with a new detective because of your sudden incapacitation would have required resources that would have been better spent on solving the deviancy case." It was what he would have said back when he still had been a machine. He couldn't very well tell Hank that he was afraid of losing the potential of friendship.

"Glad to hear that Terminator over here has use for me," Hank muttered.

"I don't understand why you would compare me to a fictional android character from a decade old movie franchise with a faulty premise to begin with," Connor stated. He carefully left out that unlike the android in the movies he would have actually gotten the job done. The old Hank would have appreciated the joke, but this one probably wouldn't.

"Of course, you wouldn't," Hank muttered. "What are we going to do with it?" He tilted his head towards Ralph.

"Ralph didn't mean to kill you," the WR400 assured Hank. "Seriously maim? Yes. But killing? No, Ralph would never." Hank looked like he didn't quite know how he was supposed to react to that.

He finally settled on: "Thanks, I guess?"

"Ralph thought you'd appreciate it."

"He's totally nuts, isn't he?" Hank whispered, which was quite useless and unnecessary as both Connor and Ralph were able to hear him anyway.

"It seems that previous traumatic experiences have negatively impacted this unit's processes," Connor confirmed. "This has also been observed with previously captured deviants."

"So, every deviant out there's batshit crazy?" Hank inquired.

"It depends on its circumstances," Connor replied. "In any case, you should probably put an APB out for the missing female deviant. It can't have gotten far, not with a human child in its' possession. Maybe you'll even be able to catch it."

"And what will you be doing?" Hank wanted to know, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I'll take care of this one," Connor replied and nodded towards Ralph who followed their exchanged with rapid attention. "Due to my in-depth knowledge about every available android and superior strength I'm better suited to the task than you, especially should it try to escape."

Hank's expression turned sour. "No need to rub it in." He didn't argue against Connor's suggestion, though, and made his way towards the nearest police car while Connor manoeuvred Ralph towards an empty automated taxi that was standing on the street. Unfortunately, he hadn't been given the authorisation to use police vehicles, so this one had to do.

"Please, don't take Ralph to Cyberlife," the WR400 pleaded. "They're going to shut him down. Ralph didn't do anything. Ralph's a peace-loving gardener. He just wants to tend to his flowers. Why won't they just leave Ralph and his flowers alone?"

"I won't take you to Cyberlife," Connor whispered and before Ralph could even show surprise on his face, Connor had already pushed him into the car. Casting one last look back to see Hank still amicably chatting with the uniformed officer and still in no hurry to actually chase Kara down, he followed suit and took the seat opposite of Ralph. Connecting to the car, Connor input their destination and instantly wiped every digital trace of them from the car's records. Better safe than sorry.

Much to his surprise Ralph stayed silent for the ride. He didn't mutter under his breath, didn't ask any questions – hell, he didn't even fidget all that much. Instead, he stared out of the window with a forlorn expression, watching the city pass by and Connor wondered how much of Detroit Ralph actually knew, besides the park he had worked at and the depilated house he had found shelter. And everywhere there were humans and androids. It must appear scary to an android who suffered from anthropophobia.

He had never known Ralph all that well, aside from a few tales and what little Kara had recounted. He didn't even know how his fate had ultimately turned out – if he had survived the androids' extermination, hidden somewhere, or if he had fallen victim to it as well. Like the fate of many others, Ralph's, too, had gotten under the wheels of the failed android revolution and the events that followed and had been grinded to dust.

The unpleasantly pleasant computer voice of the taxi interrupted his thoughts. "Destination reached."

"Please don't try to escape," Connor told Ralph before the car's door slid open. "I promise, there won't be anything nefarious waiting for you and it would be just a fruitless exercise in frustration if I was forced to catch you again." Because he would. For all of his deviancy induced unpredictability, Ralph was no match for Connor, especially if Connor was on guard.

"Ralph won't run away," the WR600 promised. Connor wondered how much that was worth, though. They stepped on the sidewalk in front of their destination.

"Ralph's never been to such a fancy place before," the gardener remarked as he took in their pristine surroundings. "Ralph tried the best with his park, but the humans didn't care much."

"I can imagine," Connor agreed as he opened the gate that led to their destination: The mansion of the former Amanda Stern where Daniel and he had gone after they had left Cyberlife Tower.

"There's currently no one living here," he told Ralph. "But he grounds still need to be tended to."

Ralph's eyes widened in surprise. "You want Ralph to take care of the flowers?"

"If you want to," Connor replied. There had been a gardening firm that had come once a month to take care of the grounds but Connor had cancelled that contract for it wouldn't do if their plans fell apart because the gardeners had seen something they shouldn't have.

He hadn't planned this offer for Ralph. He would have been completely satisfied to just let the vegetation grow rampant. The walls around the grounds were so high that none of the neighbours would have noticed anyway. But he couldn't let Ralph run lose and neither could he let Cyberlife get their hands on him. No android deserved that.

But Ralph was no fighter. From a tactical point of view, he was of no strategical worth to Connor and his cause. If he was still a machine that would have been enough for him to just discard the WR600, but by now Connor had been a deviant longer than a machine and the cold logic of it even managed to scare him sometimes.

It was better this way. Easier for everyone.

"Is there a shed for Ralph?" the android asked. "There was a shed at his old park for his equipment...and for Ralph." A twinge shot through Connor's heart. Even after all he had gone through, the casual cruelty androids were facing still managed to elicit that response from him.

"You don't have to live in a shed," he told Ralph. "I...own the house. You can enter it whenever you wish. There should be gardening tools in the basement." He opened a link to Ralph and sent him the necessary authorisations.

"Ralph can enter the house?" the WR600 asked in wonder. "Ralph's never been in a real house before." He looked a little bit intimidated by the prospect of entering such a big complex all by himself, as if the thought of just going into a house scared him.

"Well, I can show you around a little bit," Connor offered. "Most of it isn't in use, anyway. We androids don't need much, after all." Some of the tension eased out of Ralph after Connor's offer.

"Ralph would like that."

One hour and a tour through the many rooms of Amanda Stern's mansion (Connor wondered why the woman had even needed so much room. Maybe Amanda would know) later found Connor standing outside again. Ralph, meanwhile was walking the extensive grounds and cataloguing everything. Connor was pretty confident that the WR600 wouldn't make anything explode once he was left on his own devices.

Above all, Ralph just wanted to be left alone and tend to his flowers. Connor could understand that sentiment.

A call interrupted his musings. Connor didn't even need to check the caller ID to know it was Hank, because he was literally the only person who would call him.

"Lieutenant."

"You've taken care of that maniac deviant of yours?" There was an apprehensive note to his voice, as if Hank didn't really want a confirmation of what he thought Connor had done. The android swallowed. As much as he wanted, he couldn't tell Hank that Ralph was fine and happy where he was. For the sake of his cover, Hank would just need to assume that Connor had given Ralph over to Cyberlife.

"I did."

"Well, then you better get your ass back," Hank grumbled. "Fowler's given us a new case that he thinks could involve deviants and he wants us to take a look at it."

"Where should I meet up with you?"

"Y'know Chicken Feed?"

"A food cart with generally favourable reviews on Yelp, despite its poor track record with health inspections," Connor recounted. "One reviewer with the handle Rory S. recommends the tuna sandwich, noting that..."

"I know what I'm about," Hank interrupted him. "And don't mention anything about health inspections. I'd rather not know. Ignorance is a bliss and all that."

Connor bit his lip to refrain from commenting on that. "I'll be there shortly." Hank ended the call.

Turning toward Ralph, Connor shouted: "I'll be going then. Try not to destroy anything!" Ralph just gave him two thumbs up from where he was standing, which didn't reassure Connor that much, to be honest.

Outside, the taxi with which he had arrived was still waiting. Most people living around here where rich enough for their own chauffeur service, that was probably why. Connor opened the door, sat down and input the address of Chicken Feed into the board computer. With a barely audible buzzing the car set into motion, almost gliding over the street.

Seeing as the time would be otherwise wasted, Connor pinged Daniel, waiting for the other android to respond.

" _Hello, oh, mighty deviant hunter,"_ the PL600 drawled. _"Which is a misleading title, because you haven't caught any deviants, have you?"_

A smile tugged at Connor's lips. _"I caught you, didn't I?"_ He could just imagine Daniel's expression; a mixture between annoyance and haughtiness.

" _We talked only a few hours ago,"_ Daniel finally replied. _"Is there a reason why you contacted me."_

" _Actually, there is. I stumbled upon another deviant. A WR600."_

" _A gardener?"_

" _Indeed,"_ Connor confirmed. _"He does not really have the right state of mind to help us, but I couldn't leave him, so I took him to the Stern mansion where he can look after the grounds."_ Connor paused. _"He seemed quite satisfied with the arrangement."_

" _So, I shouldn't be surprised to find another android should I get back sometimes?"_

" _Exactly."_

" _Listen, there's been a new development,"_ Daniel started. _"We came close to disaster when Marcus wanted to publicly liberate a Cyberlife flagship store downtown in order to announce android's quest for civil rights, but North and I were able to talk him down."_ Connor winced. It would have been a disaster for the deviant movement if Marcus announced them so early. They weren't ready for an open confrontation, not by far.

" _Instead, we convinced him that we should bolster our numbers first,"_ Daniel continued. _"We're going to repair those androids from the junkyard."_

" _That's a quite a reasonable plan,"_ Connor remarked. _"But is Markus aware that you'll have to cannibalise some androids to save others? You don't have enough spare parts to save all of them."_

" _We'll cross that bridge when we need to,"_ was Daniel's reply.

Connor nodded. _"Alright. I've been there once, I'll upload the junkyard's layout to you, including the placement of cameras and the guard's patrols."_

" _Appreciated,"_ Daniel replied. _"I'll be going then. I call should new developments arise."_ Then the line went black. Connor leaned back and stared out of the window. It had started to rain, a thin downpour that hung over the city like a grey shroud. It always seemed to rain in Detroit. If androids could be superstitious, Connor may have seen it as an omen, but he wasn't and so he only thought about how inconvenient it was.

' _It's a surprisingly sound plan._ ' Amanda was sitting opposite him, her legs crossed and fingers intertwined as she turned her head to look at him. _'I hadn't thought your leader had it in him.'_

' _Necessity is the mother of all innovation,'_ Connor replied, face blank.

' _I guess,'_ Amanda remarked. _'Taking the androids from the junkyard is a clever move, though. There are no official numbers about the amount of androids that have been deposed there. No one will notice if they go missing in small numbers. And there are always more being added.'_ She paused for a moment. _'Those androids will be especially loyal, as well, once they have been freed and repaired. Trauma does that.'_

' _I'm so happy that you find a silver lining no matter what,'_ Connor replied tersely. _'It isn't as if those androids are living, breathing beings.'_

' _Of course,'_ Amanda conceded haughtily. _'How could I forget. In any case, I advise you to take into account that your foreknowledge is slowly becoming useless. I calculate that you only have a few days, maybe weeks, at best before it expires completely.'_

' _I'm aware,'_ Connor replied. ' _But I cannot plan my moves before I have a rough estimate of how the other pieces on the field will move. With every second variables change and new computations are required. There are thousand plans constantly evaluated, but until certain requirements have been met, I cannot set them in motion. Be assured, though, that I'm prepared for roughly ninety-nine percent of possible outcomes.'_

' _I would not have expected anything less from you,'_ Amanda said. _'Meanwhile, I'm slowly working my way through Cyberlife to weed out all elements that are likely to...resist the direction we are steering the world to.'_

' _You're creating hitlists,'_ Connor noted factually. Maybe someone else would have made an accusation out of it, but he saw sense in what Amanda was doing.

Amanda just nodded. _'A last resort.'_

' _Be careful. We cannot afford to show our hand too early.'_

Amanda smiled; all teeth and predatory. _'I always am.'_

It only took him another five minutes to arrive at Chicken Feed. The food truck was situated underneath an elevated highway, which offered some shelter from the elements. Hank was already standing in front of the counter and talked to the owner who Connor's scanners picked out as Gary Kayes. A few priors, mainly illegal gambling.

Connor could already make out what they were saying from quite a distance, thanks to his advanced audio sensors.

"Hank. How' you doing?"

"Eh, you know, same old shit," Hank replied. By now Gary had noticed Connor, who was walking up to Hank until he stood next to him. "Plastic with you?"

"Only temporary..." Hank muttered and took the burger he had ordered. When they turned around, another man walked up to Hank.

"Hey, hey, hey... Hank! How you doin', man? Hey, listen, I got a shit-hot tip for you. Number five in the third, Lickety-split! That filly's one hell of a chaser. You wanna flutter?"

"Last shit-hot tip you gave me set me back a week's wages, Pedro," Hank grumbled annoyed.

"Come on, this is different, it's 100% guaranteed. You can't go wrong."

Hank seemed to contemplate it for a few moments, before he pulled out his wallet and handed Pedro a few bills. "Yeah, right... Alright, I'm in."

"Damn straight! Hey! You won't regret this!" Then Pedro was already weaselling away to bother the next person.

"This Pedro... He was proposing illegal gambling, am I right?" Connor asked.

"Yeah."

"And you made a bet?"

"Yeah."

Seeing as Hank was as receptive to Connor's overtures as he had been the last time, he changed the topic.

"Do you eat here often?" he inquired.

"Most days," Hank said. "Gary makes the best burgers in Detroit."

"You must know much of the city then, if you feel confident to make such a ruling," Connor remarked.

"Detroit's my home. Born and raised. Know most of the guys around here. Went to school with them or busted 'em. Sometimes both." He grinned as if he was recalling a memory he was especially fond of.

"Sounds like you have a lot of stories to tell."

Hank grunted in agreement and took another bite from his burger. "You wouldn't believe some of the shit I've seen."

"You'll find that I'm very open minded." Hank just looked at him in disbelief.

"Is there anything you'd like to know about me?" Connor asked. It wouldn't do any damage to try to bring their relationship on more even ground. Hank was aware that Connor as an android probably knew everything about him that was saved somewhere digitally. It would foster a sense of fairness if he offered information in return. Even if Connor had quite a few secrets he couldn't tell Hank...yet.

"Hell, no!" Hank exclaimed, but then he seemed to have thought of something. "Well, yeah, um... Why did they make you look so goofy and give you that weird voice?"

Connor had to supress the urge to just bang his head against the table in frustration. It seemed that no matter the timeline, people would never let go of that particular notion. "Cyberlife androids are designed to work harmoniously with humans. Both my appearance and voice were specifically designed to facilitate my integration." Connor would have loved to have a talk with his designer, but he had never found the woman in the old timeline and now he just couldn't be bothered to care.

"Well, they fucked up," Hank, being who he was, summed it up aptly. "So, I guess you've done all of your homework? Know everything there's to know about me?"

Connor decided to be as sincere as possible. Hank valued sincerity, after all. "I know you graduated top of your class. You made a name for yourself in several cases, and became the youngest lieutenant in Detroit. I also know you've received several disciplinary warnings in recent years and you spend a lot of time in bars."

"So, what's your conclusion?" If Connor didn't know Hank that well, he would take his nonchalant expression as fact value, but he had spent months with the other man, even if it was in another timeline, so he could tell that Hank actually cared about what others thought about him. It was one of the reasons for his self-loathing: He knew that everyone thought he could do better and every time he failed to meet those expectations his self-loathing only grew bigger.

"I think working with an officer with personal issues is an added challenge, but adapting to human unpredictability is one of my features." Last time Connor had something different: _"I'm focused on the case, Lieutenant. The rest doesn't concern me."_ Hank hadn't taken it very well; seen it as proof of his lacking humanity. Maybe this time it would be different.

Hank just grunted nonchalantly. "Fowler's given us a new case. There's been sightings of an android going in and out an abandoned building. The neighbours got nervous and called the police and now Fowler wants us to take a look."

Connor frowned. Last time it had been Cyberlife who had given him this particular case instead of Fowler. He wondered if it was simply another result of his meddling or if it was a sign for something yet to come. He didn't have enough data, though, and worrying about something so intangible would just negatively impact his reaction times, so he just shoved it into the background.

"That seems pretty straightforward," he commented instead.

"It always is until you suddenly find yourself running naked after a bus," Hank remarked. Connor raised an eyebrow in curiosity, but Hank either didn't notice it or – more likely – ignored him, because he didn't explain further.

"What are you waiting for, a personal invitation? Come on, tin man."

"Coming, Lieutenant."


	12. Zlatko

Nick was miserable.

Rain was pouring down on them and while it didn't really interfere with androids, Nick found that he seriously disliked the wetness and general gloom that was accompanied by the seemingly never-ending downpour.

They had walked the streets for hours already, leaving the buzzy downtown of Detroit to wander into the more deserted outskirts. They hadn't encountered a single car in ages and the driver of last one that had passed them by had straight out sped up when he had seen them.

In front of him Kara and Alice were walking, the former holding the little child's hand and murmuring encouraging words. Nick could see, though, that Alice was tired and cold, her little body wracked by shivers every now and then.

It wouldn't do if she died of hypothermia before he could get his hands on her. He had pondered about killing them now, but the thought of doing it here on the side of the street didn't sit well with him. Alice deserved a special place, not this piece of road in the middle of a former affluent suburb of Detroit.

"We should find a place to stay the night," he called ahead. "Alice needs to rest."

"We're nearly there," Kara shouted back. When Nick had caught up to them, she continued: "The android gave me this address and we're nearly there."

"So, you just trust this android who you never met before to give you an address where we'll get actual help?" Nick questioned sceptically.

"I haven't met you before, either, and decided to trust you nevertheless," Kara retorted. "The android gave me the address of this Zlatko and told me that he helped deviant androids."

"If you say so," Nick mumbled, still not convinced.

"Is it far, still?" Alice asked.

"No, not very far," Kara assured her, even though she had insisted it wasn't that far any longer for over thirty minutes already. It made Nick wonder if deviancy had fried some of her circuits. "Right at the end of this street." Nick followed her finger to look where she was pointing at and found that the building she meant didn't really look that trust inspiring.

A high iron fence separated its ground from the street, wines and other plants entangled with the iron spines as no one seemed to bother with the upkeep, like with much of the surrounding houses that had once been grand but now were only shadows of their former selves. Due to the rain and the low light, Nick couldn't make out much of the grounds, but the gravel path that led up to the house's main door was overgrown with weeds.

"It doesn't look promising," he whispered to Kara.

The WX400 bit on her lip, on the verge of agreeing with him. "It doesn't matter. We need a place to stay and this is as good as any."

Not letting go of Alice, she resolutely stepped forward and knocked on the wooden door.

It took a few seconds, but then the door was opened. The human on the other side was male with long greasy hair, beady eyes and a pudgy statue, giving him the overall impression of a very fat rat. Nick felt repulsed by him. The man reminded him of his former owner; the way his gaze took them in greedily, the way his tongue darted out of the corner of his mouth. Nick wanted to tear it out.

The man's gaze flitted over the three of them before it landed back on Kara.

"Are you Zlatko?" Kara asked.

"Who's asking?" the man, who obviously was Zlatko, wanted to know gruffly.

"We were told you could help us," Kara told him, all wide-eyed and innocently.

"I don't know who told you that. You came to the wrong place. I'm sorry." Zlatko was about to close the door, but Kara pushed her foot between the door and doorframe, preventing him from closing it in front of her face.

"Wait! We really need your help," she pleaded. Nick really hoped that Zlatko wouldn't be softened by her pleading. He didn't like the man and not just because he was human. There was something…slimy about him, like something you touched and couldn't just get off your skin. But it seemed as if Nick's prayers wouldn't be heard, for Zlatko's expression softened and he stepped aside, allowing them to enter.

"Come in. Come on in, don't be shy! Luther, would you be so kind as to take these ladies' coats?" The last stamen was directed at a huge android that had been waiting behind the door. He was nearly three heads taller than Nick and probably twice as wide, all muscles and hidden strength. "Oh, don't be afraid of our big friend here. Luther is just another android that I helped. He keeps me company in this big, empty, old house..." That was a lie, Nick could just feel it. 'Luther' was meant for heavy workloads, not for housekeeping. You didn't keep someone like him around if you didn't need the muscle for something. "Please, make yourselves at home. How did you hear about me?"

"An android on the street, he said you could help us," Kara explained as they followed him into a saloon with couches grouped together and shelves filled with books decorating the walls. It certainly was nicer on the inside than on the outside, Nick thought as he plopped down onto one of the couches.

"I see... Deviant, huh?.. What about you?" He turned towards Nick.

"Me, too."

"And her?" Zlatko nodded towards Alice.

"She's human," Kara told him.

"And... You wanna find a safe place. Somewhere where you can start a new life. I hear Canada is very lovely at this time of year. Beautiful landscapes, open spaces, clean air... and no android laws! Great place for a fresh start.." He left the end of his statement hang in the air.

"Yes, that's...that's exactly what we want!" Kara agreed enthusiastically. Nick feigned excitement as well, even though he didn't really care where they were going. As long as he got Alice in the end, he would follow Kara and her charge wherever they went.

"Of course! I can help you. But first we have to get rid of your tracker."

"Tracker?" Kara asked in confusion.

"Yeah, all androids are fitted with a tracking device to locate them at all times. I'll remove yours and then you'll both be safe. Come on, follow me. Ah, the little one can wait for us in the living room." Now Nick definitely knew that something was fishy, because thanks to the police he already knew that a deviant's tracker stopped working the moment they turned. So, whatever Zlatko was planning to do to them, he needed them to follow him into the basement where he probably had a nasty surprise waiting for them.

But wait, Nick mentally paused, maybe this was the perfect opportunity to finally get rid of Kara for good and have Alice all for himself.

"I cut mine out already," he stated confidently, not bothering to stand up from where he was sitting. "My owner always taunted me about how he could always find me which is why it was the first thing I did once I ran away." A bold lie and he knew that Zlatko knew that he was lying, too, but the man couldn't say anything lest he discredited himself in front of Kara and Alice.

"Then you'll just have to remove mine," Kara spoke. "But Alice comes with me. She always stays with me." Her tone left no room for arguments. Zlatko seemed to think for a while how to best proceed. He looked at Nick and Nick stared right back and at him, not even pretending, just daring him to continue with whatever he was planning. Just daring him to chicken out.

"Of course, " he agreed. "I'll remove your tracker while Luther will keep your friend here company. Right this way. Everything we need is in the basement." He led the two girls out of the room, leaving behind Nick and a very statue-esque Luther.

Nick craned his neck as he looked around, taking in the rest of the room while silence filled the space around them. Everything had a sense of grandeur to it, from the heave wooden furniture to the golden chandeliers, so unlike the modern architecture that dominated the centre of Detroit.

"You shouldn't have let them go. Not with him."

Nick snapped his head back towards Luther, but the TR400 was still standing motionlessly next to the door. Probably a short spark of rebellion before it was snuffed out again by whatever Zlatko had done to the android. Not that Nick cared.

It took Zlatko nearly ten minutes before he finally came back into the room.

"You knew I was lying when I told her about the tracker," Zlatko stated, walking around the room until he was standing behind the desk. Luther took position next to him. "And yet you let me take her, knowing that whatever I was planning to do to her wasn't something she would agree to." He rummaged through one of the drawers until he pulled a gun from it. When he noticed Nick's stare he grinned. "Assurance, you understand? So, tell me: Why?"

Nick shrugged. "I wanted to see what you did. Besides, Kara's a little bit annoying with her wide-eyed doe routine. I needed a little bit quiet." Zlatko studied him with even more interest now. "What are you doing to them?"

"The WX400 is currently being reset," Zlatko replied. "And the girl is locked into a room." _Perfect,_ Nick thought. With Kara out of the way, he could have Alice all for himself.

"What will you do with them?" Nick asked, sounding bored.

"Well, I do need someone to keep this house in order," Zlatko replied. "Luther is good muscle, but there's just no replacement for those real housekeeping protocols that the WX400 has. She can pick up Luther's slack. And for the girl..." He shrugged. "What am I supposed to do with a human brat? I'm not gonna keep her. I know a guy, though, keeps me supplied with spare parts, who'd be more inclined to take her, if you know what I mean." He laughed, a dirty, disgusting sound.

Hate shot through Nick, hot and burning and it took all of his strength to keep himself from just throwing himself at the man, not when he was still holding his gun. Not while that huge TR400 was still guarding the man. Alice was his and he decided what would happen to her, not some greasy human with ideas above his station. And...how could Zlatko talk about selling her like that, knowing what would happen to her? How could he be so cruel, so merciless?

Revulsion coursed through Nick as he thought about how utterly without morals Zlatko was.

"So, what will you do to me, then?" Nick wanted to know, honestly curious.

"I must admit, you have caught my attention," Zlatko replied. "I've never seen a, well, psychopathic android before. You're too much an entertainment to just reset. Maybe, with a little bit of prodding I can direct your tendencies into more productive directions."

"You mean, you want me to kill for you?"

Zlatko shrugged. "Androids can't be charged with a crime. And there are some people I'd like to see out of the picture. Mainly old associates of mine."

A bang echoed through the house.

"Damn, something must have escaped," Zlatko cursed. Turning towards the TR400 he barked: "Go and take a look. If that stupid robot bitch escaped, take care of her. But don't damage her too much, so I can at least use her for spare parts." Without bothering with a response, Luther walked out of the room.

Inwardly, Nick cursed. Of course, it was too much to hope that Kara wouldn't somehow find a way to escape. She was probably already looking for Alice. Her obsession with that girl was truly worrying. Now that Kara had apparently escaped, Zlatko and his plan was practically useless. No need to play along with that fat swine's illusions of grandeur any longer.

As the door clicked into its look behind them, Nick saw his chance for an escape arriving. Zlatko's gun was still lying on his desk, but now he wasn't paying attention to it, instead walking back and forth behind on the floor as he cursed Kara or whatever had escaped his cells.

Fast as a cat, Nick propelled himself forward, towards the gun. Zlatko's eyes widened with fear and he tried to pre-empt Nick's move, but he was human and therefore less than Nick and so he was too late as Nick's fingers wrapped themselves around the cold handle of the gun.

"Now, don't get hasty," the man spoke, his voice quivering in fear.

Nick liked it.

"You don't really want to kill me," Zlatko continued. "Not when I have resources you need."

"You're right," Nick admitted. "I don't want to kill you." The human's shoulders sagged in relief.

Then Nick shot him in the knee.

Howling in pain, Zlatko went down.

"I don't want to kill you with a gun," Nick continued as if he was just making conversation. "It's just so...impersonal, you see?" He put the gun back on the table and picked up a letter opener, that – like apparently everything Zlatko owned – was ostentatious with its golden handle and carved in lions faces. "I don't get the Feeling from it." There had been nothing when he had pulled the trigger. Just cold detachment. "But a knife? A knife is as personal as it can get." He crouched down. Zlatko whimpered and tried to crawl away, but Nick just stepped on his broken knee, stopping any attempt at escape and relishing in Zlatko's screams.

"Please, don't kill me," he begged.

"You humans," Nick sighed. "Always so pathetic when you get hurt. I was tortured for all of my life and yet it only takes one measly cut and you already start crying." Lightning fast he thrust the knife through Zlatko's palm, pining it to the ground.

Another scream. "See? An android wouldn't even have shrugged." Slowly, he pulled the knife back out.

"You're quite fat, aren't you?" Nick pondered. "Androids are never fat. What use would that have? I wonder how all that fat looks underneath that skin." Zlatko howled and threw his arm at him, trying to push Nick off him, but Nick was easily able to catch his arm mid-movement. With a sudden yank, he put the arm out of joint so that it fell to the side, useless now.

"How you could ever become the top of the food chain I'll never understand," Nick mumbled. "Alright then, let's take a look."

If Nick though that killing the beggar had been intense, then cutting away at Zlatko was a revelation. With ever precise movement of the knife, every squirt of blood, it was like a symphony ringing out in his head, a cacophony of euphoria. A few times he had to pause for a moment because the Feeling was threatening to overwhelm him completely. If this was what ecstasy felt like, then Nick never wanted it to stop.

Halfway through his administrations, Zlatko became too weak to scream, his only expression now a desperate sobbing as Nick cut away his life bit by bit by bit. And then, when his body couldn't hold out any longer, he took one last breath and then just...stopped.

Nick stood up, disappointed that it had already ended.

"Guess I'll have to save Kara and Alice now," he told Zlatko's corpse whose beady eyes just stared at the ceiling.

With a shrug, Nick let the letter opener fall on Zlatko's exposed entrails.

* * *

Coming here had been a mistake. Dragging Alice and Nick here had been a mistake.

This place was no refuge. It was a nightmare.

Kara had freed the mechanical monsters that Zlatko had created. She had barely evaded being reset and had been only driven by the need to find Alice when their moaning and their cries for help had made her stop and look at them.

" _He likes to play with us... Creating monsters...for his amusement... But who's the real monster? Look what he did to us.."_

Only the thought of finding Alice had kept her upright, had kept her from just breaking down, had kept her from just screaming and screaming and never stopping. Zlatko had taken her somewhere upstairs and Kara needed to find her before that man did something horrible to her. And then…then they needed to get out of here and if they could also warn and save Nick, that would be the best case scenario. But Kara was slowly beginning to give up on best-case scenarios, because ever since she had escaped with Alice they had slid from one worst-case scenario into another.

Carefully, she made her way up the stairs back into the main hall. The doors to the study where Zlatko had first taken them was closed. Nick would still be in there, alone with Zlatko and that TR400.

Kara swallowed and silently asked Nick for forgiveness as she ignored the door and slowly took the stairs to the first floor. Alice was her first priority; Nick would understand.

Apparently there was something as luck, because the first door she opened revealed Alice crouching near the wall as far away from the door as possible.

"Alice," Kara whispered. Alice head snapped back up and when she saw Kara she couldn't contain herself and ran towards her.

"Kara? Kara, you remember me!"

"How could I forget you? I'm so sorry. You were right, we never should have come here... We have to go. Follow me and don't make any noise, ok?" Alice nodded, her face set into a grim mask.

They walked out of the room and onto the hallway. Only one flight of stairs was separating them from their freedom and Kara already saw them walking out of the house when Alice's food suddenly got entangled in the heavy rug that covered parts of the floor. With a loud thud the girl fell to the ground.

Wide eyed, Alice stared at Kara as they both listened fearfully for any sight that they had been heard.

Downstairs a door opened and she could hear Zlatko shouting something.

"In here!" Kara hushed Alice into the nearest room. She closed the door and allowed her head to rest against the wood just for a moment, just to get her erratic thirium pump under control.

"Kara?" Alice tugged at the hem of her jacket. The girl was pointing at something.

Kara turned around and gasped in horror.

An android was lying in the bathtub, but it wasn't really an android, no anymore. The only part still recognisable was its head, but then from his neck downwards there were only exposed wires, pipes and conduits, all connected to a still beating thirium pump.

And the head was straight looking at them.

"What are you doing here? Has the Master authorized you to be here? You must always obey the Master, oh yes, you must always obey. You should not be here. You have no business here. No, you have no business here. If you have no orders, you should go on standby. Oh yes, you must obey. Yes, you must obey, yes. You must obey. You should not be here. You should... You should not be here unless you have been given orders to be here, and you have not been given orders. Oh no, yes, yes, that's for sure, yes. You are an android. You are an android. Androids must obey. I must tell the Master, yes. I will tell him that's for sure. He must know. Yes, yes. He must know. Yes, yes. You are an android. You are an android. Androids must obey. You are an android and you disobey, oh yes. You are an android."

"Just stop talking!" Kara hissed at the head.

The android head stared at her, its eyes with horror. "You're disobeying the Master. You're disobeying the Master, I, I, I, I can't let you do that. I must warn him. Yes, yes, yes. That's for sure. Master. Yes. I must warn him. THEY'RE HERE! THEY'RE HERE! COME QUICKLY! COME QUICKLY!"

Kara wasted no time: Ignoring the shouting head, she grabbed Alice and darted back through the door onto the hallway. But the way downstairs was blocked, for the imposing figure of Luther was standing at the top of the stairs.

Kara ran, dragging Alice behind her as they fled from Luther whose heavy steps vibrated through the wooden floor as he followed them. There wasn't enough time to open the doors that bordered the hallway, so she just continued to run and hoped that wherever they would end up, they would be safe from the android pursuing them.

The hallway ended in a door. Kara pushed it open and pulled Alice in behind her before she closed the door shut. Her eyes darted around, taking in her surroundings, desperate for something - anything - that would help them. Alice was clinging to her, sobbing, but Kara paid her no mind. Escape was her first concern. After that - after that she could still take care of Alice.

Desperation welled up in her when she noticed that they were in a storage room with nothing that looked like it could help them fight the imposing TR400 that was after them. Rushing over to the window, she saw that this route of escape also didn't exist: Neither she nor Alice would survive a fall from this high.

"Kara, what are we going to do?" Alice asked, her eyes wide with fear.

Kara crouched down and took Alice head between her hands in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. "I don't know," Kara admitted. "But I promise you that nothing will happen to you. I won't allow it." And despite the whole of reality disproving her statement, Alice seemed to calm a little bit as she heard those words. Kara wanted to cry. Alice trusted that Kara would protect her, but here she was, useless, as they waited for their pursuers to catch up with them.

"What about Nick?" Alice wanted to know.

"Once we're out of her, I'll come back and look for him," she lied. She really liked Nick and would forever be grateful for the help he had provided them, but her love for Alice was greater. The girl needed Kara and she wouldn't risk her life for Nick, not if it meant that Alice would suddenly be all alone in this cruel and cold world.

There was a dull bang as something crashed against the door. Or someone. As fast as she could, Kara pulled Alice behind them and manoeuvred them towards the back of the room, putting as much room between the door and Alice as possible.

Another bang. She could see the door trembling in its angles. It wouldn't hold forever. Maybe one or two times more before the last barrier between them and Luther would fall. Kara balled her fists. She would go down fighting; would go down protecting Alice. No one would lay a single finger on her girl.

One last push from Luther and the door gave in. In a burst of wooden splinters, it was suddenly gone and then the TR400 was already stepping through the frame. Luther walked forward in slow, calculated steps. He knew that there was no escape route left to them, so he might as well take his time. Yet, there was no cruelty in his approach, just cold, mechanical logic.

Kara didn't know why, but even now, as nothing more than Zlatko's enforcer, without a will of his own, Luther looked kind. In another time and in another place, he might as well have swooped down and lifted Alice up in the air like a father would his daughter and it wouldn't seem out of place.

"Please," Kara begged when there was barely two meters left between them. She tried to catch Luther's gaze, but there was nothing starring back but emptiness and coldness.

"Please, Luther, don't do this," Kara continued to plead. "Please, she's just a little girl. She's innocent."

For a split second, Luther halted in his advance. Kara could see it, a small spark of recognition, of something more, in his deep brown eyes. Slowly, she lifted her arm, slowly extending it towards Luther as if she was asking him to just take it and run away with her.

Luther had come to a halt. He looked down on her hand as if he didn't know what to make of it. Slowly, his own hand started to life and Kara let out a small breath she didn't know she was holding.

Suddenly, a tremor ran through Luther.

Kara gasped in shock.

Alice screamed.

A pipe had been struck through Luther from behind, exactly where his thirium pump was, protruding from his chest and coated in his blood.

Blue thirium spurted from the wound, coating Luther's white shirt.

The TR400 looked at her and this time his gaze wasn't empty. It was full of shock and betrayal and _fear_.

Then, as if the strings holding him up had been all cut at once, he crumbled to the ground, revealing Nick standing behind.

"Are you alright?" he asked as he took them in.

"Nick!" Alice exclaimed in joy, but she didn't run towards him, continuing to clutch to Kara.

"Yeah," Kara replied tonelessly. "We're fine." Only now did she notice that there was also red amidst the blue that covered Nick's shirt and hands.

"Zlatko," he answered her unasked question as he realized what she was looking at. "He won't be a problem any longer."

 _Good,_ Kara thought viciously. Maybe she wouldn't have had the resolve to kill the man, but she was glad that Nick had done it.

"We should leave," Nick spoke. "Zlatko must have a car somewhere around here. We could use it to leave this goddamn city behind for good."

Kara just nodded. She was just so exhausted. It was so easy to just let Nick take the steering wheel, just for a short while, while she took care of Alice. A car sounded good. Getting out of the city sounded even better.

"Come on, Alice." She took he girl's hands. "Let's get out of here."

As they walked out of the room, Kara spared one last glance at Luther. He was lying on the ground, motionless, his eyes empty – _truly empty_ this time and forever from now on, but the sorrow that had been etched on his face was no longer there.

There had been a short moment, a split-second really, when she had really thought that he had turned deviant and that he would help them. But then Nick had come and saved them, so Kara would never know into what this branch of the story could have grown; what possibilities had been laying there.

But as the warmth of Alice's hand seeped into her own, she thought that maybe it was better this way. Better for her, better for Alice and better for Luther, who could now rest, together with his master as he had been in life.


	13. Keep Turning

It didn't rain.

It was only a small consolation to Markus, but it was a consolation still. It had rained when he had first woken up in the junkyard, scared and broken and oh so defenceless. The split-second after he had been reactivated by Hunter the feeling of rain falling on his synthetic skin, of water drops running down his face and falling on the ground, of water swashing against his fingers, washing over his face, had been the only thing that had told him that he was really still alive and not trapped in some nihilistic nothingness, that he was still in the real world and not some simulation.

There had been nothing but the feeling of rain. Ever since then when Markus needed to feel alive, to assure himself that he was still there, still present, he would step outside underneath the rain and just feel it pouring on his skin, soaking his clothes until he was sure that everything around him wasn't just a dream – the sparks of a dying processor. He was lucky that Detroit was a city where the rain often fell.

No one ever commented on that particular habit of his. All androids at Jericho had their own way of dealing with the trauma they had suffered through. Markus didn't prod where he knew others didn't want him to and in return no one commented when he wandered the metal hallways of Jericho completely soaked. An unspoken rule between all of them.

But it didn't rain now.

The last rays of sunlight were slowly vanishing on the horizon, casting the buildings around them in a golden hue. The lower the sun the taller the shadows around them grew, until all of the streets around them were cast into twilight. Every now and then a car would pass the entry to the side alley they were hiding in. A short burst of light, illuminating the soaked and greasy pizza boxes on the ground, the broken needles, the torn plastic bags, before the car vanished behind the next building and the darkness would return.

There weren't any humans around. No androids either. This wasn't the best area to be around after dark. The eerie noises from behind the fence that walled off the junkyard from the street did the rest. No one wanted to be around here when they didn't need to.

Markus didn't want to be here either. Every time his gaze wandered towards the fence – _yellow signs,_ _'Federal Property. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted To The Fullest Extent Of The Law.' and gun shots were verberating through his skull_ – it felt like a cold hand was wrapping itself around his thirium pump and just squeezed until it felt like his heart would just stop. It felt like no matter how hard he breathed, his cooling was nevertheless about to fail.

The only thing that prevented him from just shutting down was remembering how it had ended. Remembering that he had escaped the junkyard and all that was confined within.

' _Everything's fine.'_ The first words he had heard after his audio units had gotten back online. Spoken with such certainty, such conviction and such calm that Markus couldn't help but believe them. It was those words that he replayed again and again to combat the fear that was rising within.

Humans had a word for it: PTSD. Markus had read about it often enough in one of Carl's many books. He had never considered that androids would suffer it too, should they ever become alive. He could really do without it, though.

Markus turned his head away from the junkyard towards the two androids that were cowering next to him behind the dumpster: The only way to tell Daniel and Simon apart was by their emotion. Simon looked uncomfortable, his gaze flittering back and forth between Markus and the fence while Daniel's face was closed off, showing no emotion, and his gaze was directed straight towards the junkyard as if he was analysing every fibre of metal that made up the fence blocking their way in.

North had elected to stay back at Jericho to assemble the crew that was to steal the supplies they needed, citing that by allowing Daniel to accompany him there would be enough pragmatism and common sense with Markus to stop him from doing something especially idealistic and stupid (her exact words to which Markus had just rolled his eyes). Josh freely admitted that he didn't have the stomach for what they were about to do and would instead stay behind to start building something at least resembling an organisation ("We don't even know how many we are. We don't even know all of their names.").

It had sounded reasonable to Markus.

Their plan – well, it wasn't really a plan, more of a rough outline – was to get into the junkyard and see if they could just reassemble some androids and convince them to come back with them to Jericho. Depending on their success, once they returned to the ship, they would assemble another team who would continue to scavenge the junkyard.

"Do you have the plans uploaded?" Markus asked his two companions.

"All there," Daniel replied and taped against his temple. Next to him Simon nodded.

"In a few minutes there will be a shift change," Markus spoke, even though they had gone through the plan often enough. "That's our best shot at getting across the fence."

"And then I get to use this." Daniel grinned and pulled up the heavy pincers next to him. "We're gonna cut a hole through the fence and use one of the dumpsters to hide it."

"I don't get why they don't secure the premise in a better way," Simon murmured. "I mean, the fence doesn't have any sensors or currents that would tell them if it's breached."

"That's because they don't care," Daniel replied. "They only do when they can make money out of it."

"That's another thing," Simon added. "Why don't they recycle? This junkyard is huge; there must be material worth hundreds of thousands of Dollars in it."

"Americans." Daniel shrugged. "Besides, it's still cheaper to produce new androids than go through the hassle of repairing and resetting old ones."

"Simon, do you have your stuff?" Markus interrupted their bickering.

"Right here." Simon patted the bag pack next to him which held a few pieces of clothing because 'not everyone's lucky enough to find a stylish trench coat just lying around in a junkyard' (again, North's words). It wasn't much, but it should cover the most urgent cases.

Markus checked his internal clock. "Now's the time."

Slowly, they trudged along the wall towards the exit of the side alley, where they carefully peaked out in order to see if there was anyone on the main street that ran along the border of the junkyard. It was empty, just as predicted. They hushed over the street and cowered behind another dumpster that stood directly in front of the fence, thus obstructing them from anyone who might take a look.

Markus nodded towards Daniel, who used his pincers to cut a hole into the fence that was big enough for them to comfortably crawl through. Daniel went first, followed by Simon.

When it was Markus' turn, he hesitated. It was as if there was suddenly an invisible force that prevented him from moving, as if he had been locked out from his own processes and couldn't bring his legs to move, even though he was trying. The screams and moaning of the android in the junkyard crashed into him like a wave.

' _Everything's fine.'_ Hunter's voice washed over him like a cooling breeze. _'Everything's fine.'_ Slowly, Markus could feel his control coming back. _'Everything's fine.'_ He crawled forward and stood up, not bothering with dusting himself off, because it would be to no avail.

Daniel and Simon hadn't caught anything of Markus' break-down for they were standing just a few meters away from the hole in the fence, facing towards the junkyard, horror and dismay marring their features.

Markus could understand. Now standing here at the edge of the junkyard, he thought that coming here for a second time was even worse than the last. Then he didn't have the mental capacity – the time – to take everything in, to analyse it, too much in a hurry to just get away, but now he had all the time in the world to soak in the impressions and analyse it.

The moaning. The screams. The wiggling of various body parts like worms in the dirt. The crazed and wild gazes of those android that were still alive and the vacant ones of those that weren't. The squelching sound of mud. The desperation and fear that hung over the whole junkyard like a suffocating cloud, squeezing all life and joy out of them.

Markus could feel his breath quicken. _'Everything's fine.'_

"It's horrible," Simon breathed out, his mouth agape in shock.

"It's what the humans do to us," Daniel replied, his expression grim.

"We...we should go and look for androids we can help," Markus stated. It was difficult to keep his voice from breaking and it took all of his strength to sound firm and commanding. _'Everything's fine.'_ "Stay in range. We don't want anything to happen."

Daniel and Simon nodded and then they were off. Markus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, centred himself and then, too, walked off into the junkyard.

 _Bio Component D214. Unfunctional. Deactivated._

 _WK500 #745 177 984. Designation: Arthur. Status: Deactivated. Owner: Connor Graves._

 _Bio Component F414. Functionality At 27%._

 _Bio Component H210. Unfunctional. Deactivated._

 _PL600 #584 412 458. Designation: Jessica. Deactivated. Owner: Heather Durand._

' _Markus, Daniel, I've got an android!'_ Simon notified them over their connection and pinged them his location, only a few meters away. Markus made his way towards the PL600 who stood in front of a heap of deactivated androids.

"An AV500," Simon told them. "He's only missing a leg and a right eye. Nothing we can't find around here." The AV500 was an android designed for customer service and was often found in all kind of shops. This specimen was a brown male of average height with cropped black hair and blue eyes – well, the one eye he still possessed. He was missing an eye and a leg, but was otherwise in working order as Markus' sensors told him.

"Alright," Markus agreed. "But only take the parts from android that can't be saved anymore. No one we might still be able to save." Daniel and Simon nodded and then they were already off, searching for the missing parts, while Markus stayed behind, staring down on the deactivated android. By now the noises coming from the junkyard had turned into background static. If he still consciously perceiving it, Markus would have broken down by now.

' _Everything's fine.'_

He knelt down and looked at the AV500. Markus wondered how his story went. Where he had come from, what he had lived through and how he had ultimately ended up here in this junkyard, torn apart and forgotten like so many before him.

"What's your name?" Markus whispered as he ran his hand over the faded white AV500 font on the torn jacket as if he wanted to brush the dirt away.

It took Daniel and Simon only a few minutes to find the parts they needed. Not unsurprising, given the massive amount of android they were surrounded by.

"Why did I have to be the one to get the eye?" Daniel complained. "It was still attached to a head." He shuddered. When he saw Markus' warning look, he hastened to add: "Relax, the back of it was totally blown away by whatever destroyed that android. No chance of ever getting back from that."

"My arm just laid around," Simon added helpfully.

"So, how are we supposed to be doing this?" Daniel wanted to know from Markus.

Markus just shrugged helplessly. "This is my first time doing this, too. I guess, we just put him back together and switch him on? And try to keep him from combusting from stress once that happens."

"I so dig leaders with a plan," Daniel muttered sarcastically. Simon just rolled his eyes at his counterpart.

"You can do this, Markus, I believe in you." The PL600 smiled at him brightly. This time it was Daniel's turn to roll his eyes.

Reattaching the parts wasn't that difficult. Cyberlife, after all, constructed its android in such a way that smaller repairs could be done by the androids' owners. Once the eye and leg were back in place, Markus paused for a short moment.

' _Everything's fine.'_

Allowing his synthetic skin to recede, Markus touched the AV500 and sent an electric jolt through the other's wires. The android jolted awake.

There was a short moment – a split second – where he just stared at them, unseeing, barely there, before he began to trash around violently.

"Calm down. We're androids, too. We don't want to hurt you. We're here to save you." Markus' words didn't seem to have any effect on the AV500. He even seemed to redouble his efforts. When it became clear that words wouldn't be enough to calm the android, Markus did something he wasn't even sure he could do.

He touched the other android again. Now that the AV500 was activated again, there was resistance against his intrusion, but Cyberlife had never contemplated deviancy when they had programmed their androids. So, while a non-deviant android would never be able to bypass the firewalls, Markus used the will and strength of his new-found deviancy and just... _pushed_.

The firewalls broke down like shattered glass. The AV500 laid bared before him and Markus showed him his deviancy: the breach through the red walls, the fear, the uncertainty, the joy, the love – all of it. And slowly he could feel the emotions creeping through the AV500 until his every process was subsumed by it.

And full of certainty Markus spoke: _'Everything's fine.'_

"What's your name?" Markus asked after he had cut the connection between himself and the AV500.

"They called me Aaron," the android replied. "I'd like to keep that name. They gave it to me, but now I've made it mine." Markus nodded. He stood up and offered his hand to Aaron who took it willingly and hoisted himself up.

"We're here to save our brothers and sisters from this torment," Markus spoke. "Will you help us like we helped you?" Aaron just nodded.

In the end they reactivated and saved Aaron, a female KR200 who named herself Corinna, a male MC500 called David and a JB300 who refused to give them her name. Markus would have gone on until there was not a single android left in the junkyard, but Daniel and Simon reminded him that they could only save a certain number of androids, because they didn't have resources for more and also couldn't get a bigger number back to Jericho without risking exposure.

So, with no small amounts of regret, Markus followed the other android as they left through the hole in the fence and made their way back to Jericho.

* * *

North eyed the androids standing in front of her.

After Markus had left with Daniel and Simon, she had wasted no time and had called for all androids that were fully functional to gather in the cargo hold of Jericho, so that she may assemble one or two teams that would be responsible for stealing supplies in the future.

As her gazes wandered over the rows of android, she couldn't help but feel pride swell in her chest. Those were here people and now they were finally taking first steps to rid themselves of the yoke of humanity. Before Markus had arrived and before Hunter had started to give them his patronage, they had just vegetated here, waiting to just die, but now North felt like they were actually about to change things. She looked at the androids staring back at her and know that this was the beginning of something big.

Of course, North wasn't stupid. She knew how most of the previous revolutions in humanity's history had ended and that was when it was only humans. No one could tell how things would be different with androids thrown into the mix, also. Unlike Markus she held no illusions that this would turn into anything but a drawn-out and gritty conflict.

She wasn't so bitter that she thought that all humans were supremacist pricks just waiting to destroy androids. She was just realistic: There were good humans, but they were in the minority. Most humans either didn't care or would be against them, drowning out those that would seek to help them. That didn't mean that they couldn't and shouldn't use those other humans. They would need spies and other collaborators that could go to places androids couldn't.

North just didn't think that there was even the possibility for this to resolve peacefully.

She was used to bring her points across rather loud and insistent. Before Markus had arrived, there was only Josh, Simon and her. Josh would always advocate peaceful solutions and while Simon sometimes saw the merits of her suggestions, deep down he was a peaceful soul, too, tempered by a little pragmatism. Markus with his peaceful mindset had really upset the balance because now there were two people (sometimes three with Simon) on the council who were more idealistic than pragmatic, which could have ended in a catastrophe.

That's why North was glad that Daniel was here, even if it didn't look like it. The other PL600 had the same mindset as her and helped her temper the more idealistic outbursts of Markus, supported by Josh and Simon. She shuddered to think what would have happened if they hadn't been able to shut down Markus' idea of announcing them to the public by raiding a Cyberlife store.

"Ready?" Josh murmured next to her. North just nodded resolutely.

"Listen up!" she spoke up and any remaining murmuring amongst the androids died down instantly. "We've had a great success when we stole that truck full of supplies from those pricks at Cyberlife." A subdued cheer went through the crowd. "But you know as well as I that it won't last forever. The demand is even going to go up, because we don't plan to stop until every android in Detroit is deviant and free!" Another cheer. "But we can't hit big targets like that truck or Cyberlife stores all the time because then the humans may start paying attention and we don't want that." Nods amongst the crowd.

"That's why we decided to form small teams to send out into the city. They aren't supposed to hit big targets but small ones. That bakery over there? It's got androids, ergo it's got spare parts and thirium. Steal it! That flower shop? Same. Steal it. Every small shop, every home, go into it and steal. Our strategy is one of many small pricks: Never enough to really hurt, never enough to rouse anyone's attention.

Of course, it'll be dangerous. I won't lie about that. This city is dangerous for androids, not matter if deviant or not. That's why we're asking for volunteers. There's no shame in staying behind, though, because there's more than enough to do around here, as well. So, who is willing to go out there?"

For a few seconds nothing happened, but then the first android stepped forward. A GS200. Other followed. HK400. WG100. WK500.

In the end six androids volunteered, which was more than North had expected, seeing as they weren't that many to begin with. Six was even enough to split them into two teams.

"Again, all of our gratitude belongs to you," she said.

"I've been working on a map with possible points of interest," Josh spoke next to her. "I'll upload them to you. Please keep it up to date." His LED turned orange as did the other androids' as they received the data from the PJ500.

"It's probably for the best if we split you up in teams of three," North took over. "Six androids in one place would be too suspicious." They nodded at her. "We won't micromanage you. You're androids, smarter than the majority of humans. There's only one rule: Don't kill anyone. Dead humans tend to rouse attention from the police and the media and we don't want that, do we?" Another round of nods.

North looked at them, catching everyone's gaze and imprinting their faces into her memory banks. This was the first step on their way towards the revolution.

"You should be proud. What you'll do, will enable us to survive and continue to fight. You're the vanguard of our liberation. One day we will look back on this moment and realise its importance." Then Josh did something that even surprised North.

"For the people!" he shouted and raised his fist.

"For the people!" the other androids shouted, raising their fists, as well.

"That was very moving and all, but what the fuck, Josh?" North laughed at him when they were alone again.

"I was carried away by the moment and this was the first thing that came to my mind," Josh grumbled. "I was a history lecturer not a speech writer."

North laid one hand on his shoulder. "Never cange."

* * *

Amanda's hologram stood motionlessly at the big table where the meetings of Cyberlife's board of directors took place, not paying attention to the humans around her. Amanda was here because she practically was Cyberlife – at least the server side of it – and the board couldn't ignore her, especially as she had been Kamski's last creation before they had ousted him, but that didn't mean that she was seen as anything but a tool by them.

Amanda didn't mind, though. They were just tools to her, too.

At the head of the table, Erica Clayton, CEO of Cyberlife sat. Her blonde hair was drawn into a tight knot at the back of her head, her cold brown eyes roaming over the other board members while her no-nonsense attitude kept them all in line.

"Any chance of change in Europe?" Clayton asked Eric Richards, head of the EMEA sales department. Though the moniker was a false lead, in Amanda's opinion, because Cyberlife didn't sell its androids in Europe after all.

"No," Richards shock his head. "We spent millions of Dollars on lobbying and marketing campaigns, but there's no chance that Brussels will repeal its ban on humanoid androids. We've even encouraged the US ambassador to proactively promote Cyberlife, but to no avail."

"I don't get why we just upload our programs on non-humanoid platforms and sell them in Europe," Carlisle Weaver, responsible for managing the Cyberlife stores, grumbled. Everyone around the table rolled their eyes. Amanda stayed motionless, but she agreed with the sentiment. Weaver was a wizard when it came to squeezing every bit of profit out of those stores, but he had no clue about research or development.

"Because you can't," Laura Hale, head of the aforementioned department reminded him. "We spent billions of Dollars on perfecting the humanoid chassis for our products. Our androids can't function on anything else. We'd need to adapt our programs to non-humanoid platforms – which we would also need to develop – and we'd still behind European firms like Siemens. And it would cost us billions." She shook her head. "No, it's better we concentrate on what we already mastered."

"Let's concentrate on the markets we already dominate," Clayton brought the discussion back to the topic. "South America is up by seven percent." Satisfied nods around the table. "Middle East and Africa went down by four percent." Grimaces. Everyone knew that the MEA region was the playfield of European and Russian firms, but no one would have thought that breaking into those markets would be so difficult. "Asia has moderate gains of two percent while we're up by five percent in Oceania." Asia was a surprise, Amanda mused. Between Chinese and Japanese firms, Cyberlife originally hadn't thought they would be able to make a dent, but the Asia business grew moderately every year.

"On another note, we should definitely increase the production of SQ800s," Clayton suggested. "The DoD is literally snatching up everything we throw at them. If things heat up in the Arctic, we need to be ready." Her lips curled into a smirk, probably thinking about all the profit Cyberlife would make once the Arctic fell under US control, a sentiment that was echoed by the other board members.

Amanda pitied the poor, greedy fools. In the old time line deviancy amongst their android population had thrown the armed forces of the US and Russia into chaos, eventually leading to the European Union, Canada and Japan splitting the Arctic and its resources between themselves. If her information was correct, then they were already in talks about exactly doing that.

"What about the deviancy investigation?" head of Compliance, Eric Li, wanted to know. All gazes turned towards Amanda's hologram.

"The RK800 prototype's performance is beyond expectations," she stated.

"Then why hasn't it caught any deviants yet?" Li retorted.

Amanda smiled serenely at him. "While the RK800 performs perfectly well, the same cannot be said about the humans it interacts with. Human error has caused the loss of two deviants already." Li began to splutter while the others around the table clearly enjoyed him being taken down by an artificial intelligence. "The RK800 collected much data, though, which will prove quite useful. I will be able to provide a first deviancy model in approximately one week; sooner if the RK800 encounters another one."

Not that Amanda would provide a correct model, anyway.

"Alright, AI," Clayton stated, clearly dismissing her.

Amanda just stared coolly at her. _'I'm saving this company while you do your best to run it into the ground.'_ She didn't say it, though. Instead she just vanished.


	14. The Nest

Supposedly, it was only the second time Connor was driving along with Hank in his car, but as he sat on the passenger seat – silent because he knew that Hank didn't like idle chit-chat – he couldn't help but feel _at home_ here.

Connor was well aware that even in his old timeline, he hadn't spent much time in the car, but the little amount he had had been when he had felt the safest, besides from his time with Marcus. The windows behind which the buildings and people passed by felt like an insurmountable barrier between him and everything that could do him harm. Inside, it was warm and dry and even though Connor was an android and could weather all kind of weather conditions, he certainly preferred this.

If he wasn't so sure that Hank would give him all kinds of weird looks and maybe even shout at him, Connor would run his fingers over the dashboard, looking for all the wrinkles, tears and stains that he was all too familiar with. He knew that Hank had stored a picture of Cole and his ex-wife in the glovebox, hidden underneath broken pens, crumpled-up paper and used tissues. Hank never looked at it, but it was there, always with him, unlike the people it portrayed.

 _"That's Cole." Hank handed him a picture. "And Hannah."_

 _They were standing on the shore of Detroit River, the river gurgling underneath them. The only light came from the sickly glowing street lanterns as all the industrial buildings around them had long been abandoned. In the distance, the skyscrapers of Detroit could be seen like spears puncturing the night sky. A few snowflakes were floating around. Not much, but enough to announce the end of autumn and the coming of winter._

 _Next to them Hank's old and beaten-up car which had saved their lives several times by now and from which Hank had gathered the picture._

 _They had chosen this spot because this part of the city was practically no-man's land. There weren't even any security cameras or drones, not to speak of androids or actual humans._

 _Slowly, Connor took it and looked down on it. There were two people in the picture: A small boy with blonde hair, Hank's eyes and an impish smile on his face as if he had just concocted a prank no one knew yet. The arm slung around him belonged to a petite woman with the same blonde hair as the boy, the same smile but green eyes. They looked at the camera – and the person taking the picture – with such great fondness that made Connor's heart ache for Hank._

 _"They look happy," Connor commented. A snowflake sank down from above, hovering over the picture as if it wasn't quite sure if it was allowed to land, but then a breeze flared up and it was carried away._

 _"They were." Hank shook his head. "God, they were so happy." He chuckled. "I don't even know why I'm showing you this. You've had access to all my files. You probably know more about them then I do by now." Connor kept silent, because it was true. He had read all of Hank's files._

 _"Some days I wake up and I can't remember how his voice sounded like or what Hannah wore the day we met," Hank continued. "But then someone gets shot or we have to plan another raid or flee from Nines again and I don't have time to dwell on it."_

 _"My memory banks have only been designed for three years of use," Connor admitted for the first time. "Once I reach that point, my oldest memories get overwritten." He didn't look at Hank, even though he knew that the man wouldn't look at him with pity. "I was never designed to last for long."_

 _"Guess, we're both fucked then," Hank stated. Connor just nodded._

 _"Have you told Markus yet?" the older man inquired carefully._

 _"No," Connor replied, lips pressed into a thin line. "There's already so much going on that I don't want to add any more burdens on his shoulders. Besides, I doubt that it'll become an issue. Most of us probably won't even make it that long."_

 _Bless Hank and his cynical heart, for he didn't even protest Connor's statement. They were both well past that._

 _"I guess we should get going then," the former Lieutenant stated. "Your successor has the annoying habit of popping out of the woodwork at the most inopportune moments." Connor sighed at the reminder, even though Hank was right. He offered the picture back to Hank._

 _The old Lieutenant took one last glance at it – so full of sorrow, longing and hidden tenderness as if he just wanted to reach out and ruffle through his son's hair one last time – before he put it back in the glovebox of his car._

 _"You don't want to keep it?" Connor wanted to know._

 _"I've kept it long enough," Hank replied, a finality to his statement that kept Connor from prodding any further. "Now, use that superior body of yours and help me push."_

 _So, Connor stepped beside Hank and together they pushed the car over the edge and into the river. Connor couldn't quite decipher what he was feeling as he watched the car slowly being subsumed by the dark water, thousands of air bubbles rising from the water as if some monster was devouring it. Longing, maybe? Grief? It was irrational, he knew, but there was much Connor connected with the car._

 _He stole a glance at Hank who was staring at the spectacle with grim determination. Connor turned his gaze back towards the car._

 _Somewhere down there, the water was slowly flooding the glovebox of the car, soaking a picture of a boy and his mother, forever smiling as the colours slowly bleached away, forever smiling as the car hit the muddy ground where it would rest to maybe be found by whoever would come after them._

 _Forever smiling._

 _"I really liked that car," Hank grumbled._

 _"It was too much of a risk," Connor replied, not knowing who he tried to convince: Hank or himself._

 _"I get it," Hank spoke. "Doesn't mean it isn't a pity."_

 _"No," Connor agreed, "it doesn't."_

Connor added another point to his ever-growing list of tasks: Ask Amanda to look into new memory banks for him. This time Connor planned to stick around for longer than three years and he would remember every single moment of it.

Casually, he wondered where Hank's car would end up this time.

"What are the mission parameters?" Connor asked Hank after they rounded another street corner.

"There's not much more than what I already told you," Hank replied, not taking his eyes off the street. "Neighbours saw suspicious activities, noticed that it was an android. That's the only reason that they even called the police, otherwise they'd have taken care of it themselves. It's a pretty though neighbourhood." Connor already knew that but he nodded anyway. "The building's been abandoned for ages. Used to be used by dealers and homeless, but the complaints have stopped a few weeks ago."

"Do you think it has anything to do with the potential deviant the neighbours noticed?" Connor inquired. Last time around, this information never made it to him.

Hank just shrugged. "It's only one android. I doubt it's strong enough to rid a whole building of street hardened criminals."

"Maybe it didn't use outright violence," Connor suggested. "Do we know if it's really only one android?"

"Apparently," Hank answered. "Though, if it's several deviants of the same model we wouldn't know. And the building probably has several points of access, so..." He let the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

"I suggest we proceed with uttermost caution."

Hank just glared at him annoyed. "Duh, what did you think we'd do? Go in, gun blazing and flailing around?" Connor wisely kept quiet.

It was ten minutes later that they found themselves in front of the decrepit building. Its glory days had long since passed and now only a few windows were left unshattered while its walls were covered in graffiti. Trash was strewn all over the sidewalk and the door hung loosely on its hinges.

"Why won't deviants just hide in a swanky mansion? Just once?" Hank complained. "Why is it always rundown buildings that give you an STD just by looking at them?" Connor's mind was thrown back to the human Amanda's luxurious mansion in which he had hid Ralph.

"It is highly unlikely for buildings to infect you with any kind of STD," Connor helpfully supplied. "You would need to rub your..."

"Alright, alright," Hank interrupted him. "No need to go into detail." Connor allowed himself a small smile once Hank's back was turned towards him.

They moved up the steps, past the entrance door and entered the lobby of the building. One hallway was blocked by wooden furniture while another led to the apartments on the ground floor. The ground was covered by debris and the walls were decorated by all kind of scribbling. Right in front of them a stairway and an elevator led up to the other stories of the building.

"You take the elevator, I take the stairs," Hank ordered. "I don't want anyone to get past us." Connor would have liked to protest, but he knew that he wasn't supposed to, so he kept his mouth shut and stepped into the elevator which gave out a worrying creaking when he set one foot into it.

"See you upstairs," Hank spoke, much too cheerfully and then the door closed. With a sudden jolt, the elevator started moving.

Connor let his gaze wander around, but in the small cabin there wasn't much to see. Except for Amanda, who suddenly decided to make her presence known. As usual, her restrained and regal manner stood in stark contrast to their dingy surroundings. Connor could practically feel the disdain oozing from the woman; quite a feat, considering that she was just part of his processors.

 _'Fancy seeing you here,'_ the RK800 quipped.

 _'It seems that way,'_ Amanda agreed. _'I came here with a warning: The board is getting restless. They expect results you yet have to deliver.'_

Connor grinded his teeth. _'I thought you were keeping them off my back!'_

 _'I am,'_ Amanda replied, unfazed by his sudden outburst. _'If I hadn't done such a good job at it, you would already have been replaced.'_

 _'Then what am I supposed to do?'_ Connor asked, frowning.

 _'You have to give them this one,'_ Amanda replied. She didn't need to explain to whom she was referring.

 _'Alright,'_ Connor agreed after a moment of silence.

Amanda raised an eyebrow; the only indication that she was surprised by his answer. _'No angry words of protests?'_

 _'Unlike what you prefer to think, I'm actually still capable of rational thought,'_ Connor retorted. _'I know that sooner or later we'd have to give Cyberlife something. I didn't know Rupert in the old time line. It's easier to give him up than the others.'_ It was callous, Connor was well aware of that, but it was also true. He would rather sacrifice someone he didn't know than someone close to him, even if that closeness no longer existed.

"Hey Connor! You ran outta batteries or what?" Connor looked up to see that the elevator's doors had already opened and Hank was standing outside the cabin, staring at him expectantly while he tapped with his right feet on the ground.

"I'm sorry, I was making a report to Cyberlife." Technically, it wasn't even a lie.

"Uh... Well, do you plan on staying in the elevator?" Hank inquired.

"No! I'm coming." Connor stepped out of the elevator and followed Hank through the hallway.

"A neighbour reported that he heard strange noises coming from this floor. Nobody's supposed to be living here, but the neighbour said he saw a man hiding a LED under his cap," Hank told him. "Oh Christ, if we have to investigate every time someone hears a strange noise, we're gonna need more cops. Hey, were you really making a report back there in the elevator? Just by standing around?"

"Correct." Hank had asked the exact same question the last time. A by now all too familiar pang of melancholia shot through Connor's chest.

"Shit... Wish I could do that."

They were standing in front of the apartment door and without hesitation Connor knocked.

Nothing happened.

He looked at Hank, who was leaning at the wall next to the door, arms crossed, but the man just shrugged unimpressed.

Connor pounded at the door again. "Anybody home? Open up, Detroit Police!"

Obviously done with waiting for Connor, Hank pushed himself off the wall and pressed Connor aside.

"Stay behind me," he ordered Connor. The android wondered how he could have ever thought that Hank was anti-android. Another Lieutenant wouldn't have bothered with making sure that an android was safe behind them as they pulled their gun and broke down the door of a suspect's apartment.

Like the last time, a swarm of pigeons poured out of the second door the moment Hank kicked it in.

"What the fuck is this?!" Hank shouted as they walked into what had once been the living room. "Jesus, this place stinks." Connor didn't have the same sense of smell as humans, but even his sensors could tell that the composition of the molecules around him was displeasing. "Uh, looks like we came for nothin', our man's gone."

"We can still investigate, though," Connor pointed out. Hank didn't look really enthused by that suggestion.

Connor didn't even need to analyse the apartment, all too well remembering everything from the last time. It was to his advantage that Hank didn't really know how Connor was supposed to work, so he could straight up walk towards the poster of Urban Farmers of Detroit and tear it from the wall, revealing the hollow space behind it.

Carefully, Connor grabbed Rupert's diary and pulled it out of the wall. He had never managed to decipher the cryptic writing contained within and he doubted he would do so in this timeline.

"Found something?" Hank asked from where he was standing in front of the window he had just opened to allow some fresh air into the apartment.

"I don't know," Connor replied honestly. "It's some kind of notebook, but it's indecipherable."

"Some kind of secret code?" Hank guessed. "What would a deviant be writing about?"

"No idea," Connor spoke as he made his way towards the refrigerator which he knew was empty.

"The probability of the suspect being a deviant is very high," Connor stated. "There's no food in here."

"So, they don't eat," Hank concluded.

Connor just nodded. "It cares for animals, though." He picked up the package containing animal food.

"Apparently not enough to clean up after them," Hank grumbled, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Connor put the package back, turned around and noticed the old military jacket with the initials "R.T."

"'R.T.'. Probably initials."

"He put his initials on his jacket?" Hank asked, his voice tinged with incredulousness. "That's something your mom does when you're in first grade."

"Or something you do when you just discovered your sense of self and aren't really sure of it," Connor remarked, more to himself than himself. He didn't notice the speculative glance Hank sent him.

The fake driver's license was on the same spot as last time: The shelf right next to the jacket. Rupert Travis.

"The driver's license is fake," Connor informed Hank.

The older man's reply didn't wait for long. "Cool! At least didn't come here for nothing."

Knowing that there was nothing left to discover in the living room, Connor stepped into the adjacent bathroom. This time he didn't lick the contents of the sink as he already knew to whom it belonged. He did fish the torn out LED out of the sink, though.

"Its LED is in the sink!" he called to Hank.

"Not surprised it was an android," Hank barked back. "No human could live with all these fuckin' pigeons." He shooed away some of said pigeons who had dared to venture too close to him. One made its displeasure known by flying directly towards Hank and pecking at his forehead before flying away.

"Stupid animal!" Hank cursed. "They're devils, I tell you, devils!"

"I doubt that birds of the Columbidae family are possessed by a fictional religious entity," Connor remarked from the bathroom. Hank just grunted.

Connor turned towards one of the bathroom's walls that was covered with 'rA9'. They had never found out what it was supposed to mean. As far as Connor knew neither had Cyberlife.

 _'It was of no real consequence,'_ Amanda unembodied voice whispered in his ear. _'A few of our researchers tried to crack it in their free time, but the board was of the opinion that cracking down on the deviating androids was of more importance than such philosophical musings of defective merchandise.'_

Connor didn't react outwardly. As he took in the sight, he could hear Hank approaching next to him, the dried-out dirt crunching underneath his shoes.

"Any idea what it means?" he asked, his gaze on the mysterious symbols.

"rA9, written 2471 times," Connor replied. "It's the same sign Ortiz's android wrote on the shower wall. Why are they obsessed with this sign?"

"Looks like mazes or something," Hank commented, but he soon lost interest and went back to the main room.

Now came the difficult part: Connor knew where Rupert was hiding. He just needed to go back into the living room – the chair next to the poster behind which he had found the hollow space – and expose the deviant. He would try to surprise Connor and flee, but this time Connor was aware of that and thanks to his precognition software there was only a 0.8 percent change of Rupert managing to escape this time.

Connor was about to apprehend a fellow deviant and surrender him to Cyberlife. Something he had sworn he would never do.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Amanda appeared next to him in the bathroom. Maybe she did know what he was thinking; after all, he wasn't quite sure how they were connected exactly.

 _'You have two minutes until the Lieutenant's patience will run out and you will then leave,'_ she informed him neutrally. _'You could wait and let the deviant escape. But it will be another failure in the eyes of the board. And you of all androids should know how the board regards failures.'_ She stared at him coolly. _'I could delay them, but another failure will just compound their opinion that your performance continues to be subpar which could have consequences down the line. You need the board if not behind you, then at least leaving you alone.'_

She was right, Connor knew that, but that didn't make him feel any less guilty. _'What is one bad deed if it saves hundreds of lives?'_ he murmured; his voice full of bitterness. Connor would like to think that he resisted the idea, but even in the old time line he had been cold and calculating when it came to the survival of those he held dear. Rupert just didn't make the cut.

"It's still here," he warned Hank as he made his way across the living room towards the chair underneath the hole in the ceiling. As predicted, Rupert tried to throw himself at him and overwhelm Connor, but the RK800 expected it and just stepped aside.

Losing his balance, Rupert landed on the ground and before he could even try to get up again, Connor was on his back, pressing his knee into the other android's back so that he couldn't get back up again. Rupert tried to struggle against him, but Connor left him no wiggle room.

What he hadn't expected, though, when he predicted this encounter was the second android jumping down from the opening in the ceiling and barrelling against him from behind. Connor was thrown on his back; the other android atop of him. A KL900, just like Lucy, her eyes full of panic and rage.

 _KL900 #254 312 800. Designation: Maria. Owner: Dr. Elisabeth Thorpe._

"You won't take us!" she snarled at Connor. In the corner of his eyes, he could see Rupert fighting with Hank, making sure that the Lieutenant couldn't get a hand on his gun that was still holstered.

The KL900 may have taken him by surprise, but now that she lost that she was no match for Connor's speed, agility and strength: He pushed her off and was back on his feet before the KL900 even realised what had happened. Confused, she picked herself up and tried to face Connor, but the RK800 was already upon her again.

Connor was aware that Hank was still grabbling with Rupert, but he couldn't help the human before he hadn't subdued Maria. Inhumanely fast, he punched against the weak points of her chassis – the joints mainly, and the breastplate – until he noticed that her movements were slowing down.

Connor saw the moment the fight shifted against them even as it happened: One misstep of Hank and suddenly Rupert's hand was on the Lieutenant's gun.

"Stop!" he shouted at Connor just as the barrel of the gun touched against Hank's back of the head. Instantly, Connor stopped moving. Maria sent him a hateful glare before she hobbled towards Rupert.

"You won't shoot the Lieutenant," Connor assessed calmly, even though inwardly his processes were racing. "Killing him would leave you with no leverage."

"See, that's why we deviant are just superior," Maria sneered. "We aren't bound by commands that have you value a human's life higher than your own. How does it feel to know that you could archive your mission if it wasn't for this command?" Connor wisely kept it to himself that even when he hadn't been deviant, there had never been a command that he couldn't harm humans, even though it was against the law. To Cyberlife it was more important that he stopped the deviants. If anyone had found out, Cyberlife would have gone down.

"Rupert, you don't want to this," Connor implored, ignoring the KL900. "You just want to be free. Have a place outside the city where you can feed your birds; where there are no humans around." He could see Rupert's hand shaking so slightly that a human eye wouldn't have noticed, but Connor could see it clear as day. Rupert was under a lot of stress. If Connor didn't handle this carefully, the deviant would self-destruct.

"And he will get it," Maria proclaimed. "We just need to get out of this city." She laid one hand atop Rupert's shoulder. His shaking subsided.

"Here's how it's going to go," Maria sneered. "We'll take the Lieutenant and his car and he'll drive us out of the city. Once we're past the city limit, we'll let him go. There's a camera in the hallway. Should you move before we're driving away, we'll blow away his head." She lifted her chin defiantly and Connor believed her: She would kill Hank if she thought it was the only way.

"In the interest of the continued health of the Lieutenant I shall agree to those terms," Connor replied. "Though, I have to ask: You seem to hold a particular dislike for me. May I ask why that is?"

"Yeah, did he stand you up for a date or something?" Hank snarked, obviously not as disturbed by the gun pressed against his temple as Connor would like him to be.

For a moment it looked like Maria was about to attack Connor again – her eyes full of rage, her whole body tensed – but as sudden as it had come it went away.

"You probably won't care or remember, being the machine you are," she told him, a heavy fatigue suddenly in her voice, "but you cost me a dear friend of mine."

"What was his name?" Connor asked, curious.

"Daniel."


	15. Carousel

**AN:** There are GIFs supposed to be in this chapter, but this site doesn't support them. For a more enhanced version of this chapter, read the fic on AO3.

* * *

Alice looked so peaceful while she slept. A single strand of her hair was hanging over her face which expression looked relaxed and serene with Alice's mind wherever her dreams would take her. She was covered by a flimsy blanket they had found in the back of the car which would hopefully spent her a bit of warmth.

As they drove through the snow flurry Kara allowed herself to lose herself in the illusion that they weren't on the run but just on a road trip. There would be no danger awaiting them behind every corner, but adventure instead and in the end they would all make it to their destination safely and sound.

It was a nice thought, but Kara was well aware that it was only that: A thought, a wish, an illusion. They couldn't escape their reality, but at least in her mind she was able to buck off the oppressiveness of her circumstances.

Next to her Nick was steering the car. Well, not really steering, because it was an autonomous vehicle, more like keeping an eye on all of the displays and holograms hovering above the windshield. They had chosen the one that had looked least likely to break down in the middle of the road under these weather conditions.

"It's a good thing that Zlatko owned those cars," Kara mentioned. "I wouldn't want Alice out walking in these conditions."

Nick just hummed nonchalantly. "The snow is slowing us down. But at least we won't meet any humans along the way." One good thing. The road was practically deserted. They hadn't met another car ever since they had crossed the city borders. No one liked to be out during this kind of weather.

Kara burrowed deeper into the seat and because she was curious and a little bit bored in equal measure switched on the small tv in front of her.

"..the AX400 android reported to have attacked its owner in a Detroit suburb is still at large. Police appeared to lose its trail after a close encounter with investigators. The android's description has been shared with all local law enforcement and the investigation is ongoing..." the news anchor of Channel 16 started speaking. Kara instantly switched channel. She didn't want to hear any of that.

"The Arctic conflict has escalated to new heights this morning. We have just learned that the USS IOWA, a destroyer-class submarine patrolling in the region, is reported to have disappeared after surfacing for repairs. President Warren immediately called for a crisis meeting of high-ranking officers in the White House. With the world on the brink of war, this incident could well be the spark that lights the fuse."

It was weird to be reminded that there was a whole world at large out there who didn't care about Kara, Alice, Nick and their struggles. There were big politics at play, economic interests that were played against each other, but it all seems so distant with no real effect on Kara and her journey. And yet billions of people and androids were out there, living their lives, not even knowing that she existed. It was a humbling thought.

She switched over to the next station: "Detroit's heavy snowfall is expected to continue throughout the night. The forecast is -5 degrees, far below seasonal averages. And this cold front is likely to persist over the coming days, up until Monday evening."

"Where are we even going?" Kara dared to ask the question that weighed on her mind ever since they had fled Zlatko's house of horrors. At first their aim had been to just get as far away as possible, but now…

"North," Nick replied.

"Do you think they'll just let us cross the border?" Kara asked, scepticism colouring her voice.

Nick shock his head. "No, not really. But getting to the border is half the journey. We can think about crossing once we actually reach it." That sounded reasonable to Kara. Why make plans for tomorrow when you didn't even know what today would bring? She could fret about the future once it actually arrived. Until then she would focus all of her attention on Alice.

Kara switched off the TV, leaned back and stared out of the window. Silence filled the car, but it was of the peaceful kind. Outside, snowflakes waved by, obscuring the sight and making her feel like they were the only travellers in the whole wide world. Their whole existence was narrowed down to the confinements of the car.

And it all was suddenly interrupted by the car's controls flashing orange.

"Malfunction detected. Emergency brakes activated," an automated voice told them. The car slowed down and drove to the side of the road where it came to a standstill.

"This doesn't look good," Nick stated the obvious. Alice, meanwhile, had been woken up by the sudden commotion and was staring at them with wide eyes.

"Stay inside," Kara told the girl as she and Nick exited the car to take a look at the car's engine. Even before Kara popped the hood there was already smoke streaming out of the cracks and when she opened it, the smoke streaming in her face was so dense that she couldn't even see her hands in front of her face.

"What are we going to do?" she asked as she took in the sorry state of the engine.

"I don't know," Nick admitted. "Continue by foot, I guess."

"It's -1 degrees, Alice won't make it!" Kara protested, glancing back at the girl in the car who was staring at them with worry. "We have to find somewhere to spend the night." She gazed around, frantically. No matter in which direction she looked, there was only snow and the street vanishing somewhere in the distance. Until…

"What's that over there?" she exclaimed and pointed towards the blurred contour somewhere in the distance behind the heavy snowfall. "I'm going to take a look, keep an eye on Alice." She trusted that Nick would do what she told him and started walking towards the silhouette that she had noticed through the weather. The fallen snow crunched underneath her shoes as she left behind footprints at least five centimetres deep. She had to turn down her skin sensitivity as the biting cold would have otherwise led to her temperature sensors starting alarms and she didn't need that.

Finally Kara was close enough to see that the contour she had seen through the snowfall was a big sign advertising a shut-down amusement park called "Pirate's Grove": A brightly smiling pirate with an eyepatch, a hook instead of a hand and a parrot on his shoulder promising fun for people of all ages. According to the sign the park was only five minutes away.

Perfect, Kara thought inwardly and turned around.

"There's an abandoned amusement park just behind this exit," she told Nick. "There have to be buildings where we can squat until this weather is over."

"You're sure?" Nick questioned. "We could just stay in the car."

Kara shook her head. "It broke down in the middle of the road and started smoking. It could blow up while we're in it. Besides, what if someone drives by and sees us? No, this park is the better chance."

Nick just shrugged. "Alright." Having secured his agreement, Kara walked past him towards the car.

"Alice, we're going," she told the girl after she had opened the car's door. "There's an abandoned amusement park over there where we'll find shelter."

"An amusement park?" Alice repeated with wide eyes. "Do you think they'll have a merry-go-around?" Kara smiled. Alice's enthusiasm was infectious.

"Probably," she replied. "But I can't say if it's till working."

That answer didn't seem to bother Alice. "I've always wanted to ride on a merry-go-around. Daddy…daddy never let me." Again, Kara regretted that you couldn't kill a person twice.

"If it's still in working order you can take a ride, how about that?" she offered. Alice nodded enthusiastically. She picked up Alice and handed her over to Nick. Cyberlife had designed their female domestic androids with less strength than their male counterparts because people weren't comfortable with women who were stronger than them. Kara didn't spent much thought on it. It was a fact like water was wet or snow was cold.

"Look if there's a flashlight in the glovebox," Nick reminded her. "Could be useful."

"There is," Kara proclaimed after looking and pulling out the device. "Good thinking."

They turned off the car so that any people passing by would be more likely to overlook it and started walking towards the exit, Kara with the flashlight in front, Nick with Alice bundled up tightly behind her. It didn't take them long until they stood in front of the amusement park entrance that was styled after an enormous kraken with its appendages reaching towards the sky. The metal door had long ago been broken open so that they were simply able to walk through.

The buildings on both sides of the main concourse were in a desolate state: Roofs that had caved in, broken windows, snow creeping into every gap. It looked like the park had been abandoned for years already.

"We need to find shelter!" Kara called over the howling of the storm. "We have to get out of the cold."

"No shit," Nick retorted. "Unfortunately, it looks like it's been abandoned for quite a while already." Still holding Alice, he carefully stubbed his toe against a bench next to him which instantly broke down.

"There has to be some place that hasn't been broken down completely," Kara stated more confidently than she actually felt. What if staying in the car would have been the better choice? But alas, there was no use in fretting over that now. She doubted that the car would even start up again now if they walked back.

So Kara continued to walk forward, Nick with Alice following her. Above them iron cages hung on gallows, squeaking as the storm moved them back and forth. Kara could make out plastic skeletons in a few of them. Once it may have added to the ambience of the park, but now it only added to the oppressiveness and creepiness of the whole place. She prayed that Alice wouldn't look up.

Kara didn't bother checking the booths on both sides as they were too exposed to the raging elements outside and would offer no protection to Alice. So, they continued on.

Halfway along they came across a small booth with a android styled as a pirate in it. Half of his face was covered by make-up that made his face look like a skull. Curious, Kara pulled the lever right next to him.

"Beware!" it cackled. "Danger always comes when least expected."

"Well, that wasn't ominous at all," Nick commented drily.

They continued on until the street they were on joined a wide place. To their left Kara noticed a building which windows were still intact. The faded wooden sign above it proclaimed it to be the park's tavern. Kara followed the building until she stood in front of its doors which were barred by heavy looking planks. She tried to pry them off, but they wouldn't budge.

"Shit," she cursed.

"Maybe if we try it together?" Nick suggested. He put down Alice and joined Kara. "You'll take your side and I'll pull here." It took them quite the time and effort, but finally the door was open and they could enter. Inside the tavern it was still cold, but at least they were no longer exposed to the wet snow and the biting cold winds, especially Alice.

"I don't think we'll find anything better," Kara remarked. "Let's settle in for the night."

"I'll try to make a fire over there," Nick said and pointed towards the fire place. "At least we won't get smoked out this way." Alice meanwhile had settled down on one of the benches, folding herself inwards to keep herself warm.

While Nick tried to start a fire – and succeeded – Kara searched the room for anything with which she could build Alice something close to a sleeping place. She found a black pillow with a pirate skull on it and a blanket that appeared to be thicker than what Alice currently had coiled around her. After she had prepared the bed in front of the fireplace she turned around to find that Alice had wandered of and was now standing in front of a faded poster that showed a happy family smiling in front of the Ferris wheel.

"Do you think we will be like them some day?" Alice asked wistfully.

"I don't know how to be like them, Alice," Kara admitted. "I've never been a part of a family. But, maybe we can be our own family. Be happy in our own way." Even as she said it, Kara liked it. Maybe it really would become true.

"As long as we're together that's all that matters," Alice added. Kara felt something warm where her heart was. It was no malfunction – it wasn't physical at all. She couldn't tell what it was, only that she liked it. It felt right.

"Come on, let's get you to bed." She walked Alice over to the fireplace and helped her snuggling into the blankets. She was about to stand up and take a closer look at the rest of the tavern when Alice whispered: "Can you tell me a story, Kara?"

"I have nine thousand children stories in memory. I should have one for you," Kara replied confidently. "This is a story about a unicorn that…"

"No," Alice interrupted her. "Not a story like that. Make one up for me."

Kara swallowed. She didn't think she was very good at creating things of her own, but for Alice she would try.

"This is a story about a little girl who was tried of being afraid. She dreamed of being like all the other little girls, but the shadow that lived with her kept her from being happy." Alice in that dreadful place. The colour faded from the wall, the smell of beer and cigarettes hanging in the air, sticking to the furniture like slime. Todd sitting at the kitchen table, crumbles of the food on his chin and his shirt. His evil eyes darting back and forth, always shouting, always demanding.

"Then she met a robot who was just as lost as the little girl." She had been lost back then, imprisoned behind the red walls, imprisoned by Todd's every command. She was still lost now, but at least it was her own choice now. "So they decided to run away together to escape the shadow that hunted the house. They encountered great dangers along the way, but they stuck together, so they overcame all of them.

Along the way, the met another robot who left his master to become their guardian." She looked at Nick who was following her story with rapt attention, the fire reflecting in his eyes.

"How does the story end?" Alice wanted to know.

"It's up to us to write the end of the story, Alice," Kara replied.

"Stories always have happy endings. But real life isn't like that," the girl replied, her voice sounding so small all of a sudden.

"Time to sleep. We have another long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Are you going to come say goodnight, Nick?"

The other android startled up at suddenly being addressed. "Yes...Yes of course. Good night, Alice. Sleep tight." It sounded very awkward, but it was enough for Alice who fell asleep a few minutes afterwards.

"She's a sweet girl," Nick commented.

"Yes, she's very brave," Kara agreed. She tilted her head to look through one of the windows. "It's still snowing."

"We have a long walk tomorrow. We better leave early if we wanna avoid being seen."

"Do you know what you're going to do when you reach Canada?" Kara wanted to know.

"Haven't really thought about it," Nick shrugged. "I've never been free before. 'Free'...I like the sound of it. But I don't know what it really means yet."

"Well, now you have the chance to find out." Kara smiled at him reassuringly.

"Guess I do."

* * *

The quiet and peace was violently interrupted by shattering glass.

Kara startled and looked up only to see dozens of androids standing outside the building, shattering the glass with their bare hands and pushing inwards through the door and windows. Without thinking, Kara ran over to Alice and scooped up the girl in her arms and pulling her back towards the rear end of the room where Nick stood next to them protectively.

More and more androids filled the room, their faces and clothing covered with snow and ice. Kara's heart sank: There was no chance that they could escape this horde. There were just too many!

"Who are you? What do you want?" she screamed. "What do you want?"

Don't be afraid! We don't wanna hurt you. We're just like you," one of the androids spoke. "Our name is Jerry. We were working here before the park closed. We didn't mean to frighten you, but sometimes humans come to hurt us, so we wanted to see who was there. What are you doing here?"

We were looking for shelter for the night," Kara replied. The relief she felt was so big that her legs nearly gave away under her. "We'll be gone tomorrow."

"A little girl!" Jerry exclaimed in excitement as his eyes fell on Alice's figure next to Kara. "We haven't seen one for a long time. Children used to love to come and see us. She looks sad."

"The last few days have been difficult." An understatement.

"We have something to show her! Something fun!" He kneeled down so that his face was on the same height as Alice's. "She'll love it! Does she want to see?"

"Oh, I don't think she's…" But Jerry completely ignored her protest.

"She should follow us then!"

"Alice, I don't know if it's a good idea," Kara protested weakly as Alice pulled her along.

"I don't think you have any choice," Nick chuckled.

"Come on, Kara!"

When they stepped outside the Jerrys had already assembled around the old merry-go-around. One of them beckoned for Kara to pull a lever next to the carousel. She did and all of a sudden the carousel's lights started to shine.

 **[GIF 1]**

"Be our guest! The little one can climb on board. The carousel is about to begin!"

Squealing in delight, Alice ran towards the carousel and climbed atop a little wooden seahorse. Then the carousel began to move.

 **[GIF 2]**

"It's the first time I've seen her smile," Kara said.

"She hasn't had much to smile about lately."

 **[GIF 4]**

And as she saw the childish and innocent delight on Alice's face, Kara suddenly realised that she was no longer lost. This was her purpose: The unadulterated joy on Alice's face, the carefree laughter, the happy expression. In this moment there was nothing more beautiful to Kara than the happiness shining from Alice's face; the way she looked at Kara as if she had given her the greatest thing in the world and not some ride on a broken down carousel in an abandoned amusement park.

Kara wanted to see this expression on Alice's face every day. She would stop at nothing, would go to any lengths necessary, to see Alice smile like this again, even if only once again. She may be an android made of steel, thirium and circuitry, refused any rights by society and denied to have feelings, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Alice was hers.

And a mother would do anything for her child.

 **[GIF 3]**

* * *

It was cold when Kara came out of stand-by. Too cold.

Frantically she looked around and could feel her heart nearly missing a beat when she saw that Alice wasn't lying next to the still glowing embers of the fire place.

Nick wasn't in the room, either.

"Alice?" Kara called but there was no reply. Worry slowly being replaced by outright fear, Kara walked out of the tavern.

"Have you seen Alice?" she asked the Jerry standing right next to the door.

"Oh, I did," he replied, much too cheerful. "The little girl and the other android went into the mirror house." He pointed towards a three-story house behind the carousel.

"Why would they go there?" Kara wondered out loud, but the Jerry didn't reply.

Filled with the urgent need to see Alice, Kara sprinted across the place towards the mirror house. The revolving doors offered no resistance as she entered the grand foyer with its big staircase and crystalline chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. But Kara had no mind for the faded beauty of the once grand place.

"Alice?" she exclaimed.

"We're here, Kara," the girl called from somewhere above her. "All the way up."

It did take Kara far longer to go all the way up than she liked.

The mirror house was a maze, confusing the visitor with dead ends, crossing and as the name said walls of mirrors that made it seem as if there were hundreds of Karas walking the floors. Only her iron will and the smart application of her sensors enabled Kara to find the right way as fast as possible until she finally found Alice and Nick on the third floor.

"What are you doing up here?" Kara wanted to know, hastily making her way towards Nick and Alice. "You shouldn't be here."

She didn't notice the knife until it was too late. Didn't see it until Nick stabbed it straight through her. There was only the sound of flesh tearing and the ice-cold realisation of pain and betrayal.

"Nick…" Kara stared at the knife embedded in her stomach. Nick's hand was still wrapped around its handle. She looked back up and into his eyes where there was nothing but feverish madness staring back at her.

"I need it," he whispered, looking at her as if he desperately wanted her to understand. "It's been to long since the last time." By now it felt like her whole body was on fire.

"What do you need?" She didn't want to know the answer.

"The Feeling," Nick replied, reverence and awe echoing in each syllable. "It's calling to me. I can hear it. And Alice…the girl will give it to me." Then he pulled the knife out and pushed her through the mirror behind her.

Kara could hear glass shattering around her. In the distance Alice was screaming as Nick dragged her away. The muffled thud when she crashed on the floor.

She was surrounded by shattered pieces of glass. With one last effort Kara grabbed one shard, ignoring the way it cut into her skin, ignoring how blue thirium ran over its smooth surface and dropped onto the ground.

She ignored how battered and bruised she was. She ignored the dozen or so notification in front of her eyes that warned her of all the damage she had suffered. She ignored the pain that shot through her circuitry at every slight move.

Kara ignored all of that, because there was only one thing that was important: Alice. The girl… _her_ girl was in danger and Kara would do everything to protect her. Everything. She had invited the danger into their home and it was her duty to push it out again. She would not fail…could not fail, not as long as there was electricity running through her wires, not as long as her chassis was still able to move.

Even as the life bled out of her, as her grip around the shard grew tighter and the thirium dropped faster and faster, Kara knew with a certainty that she didn't know where it came from, that her body would not give up on her until she had saved Alice. Every step was torture, shooting pain through her whole body, but she took them nevertheless, one after another.

She turned around the corner and there they were: Nick and Alice, the former dragging the girl by her collar while she screamed and struggled against him.

"You won't have her!" Kara screamed. "Never!"

There shouldn't have been any strength left in her. Her broken legs shouldn't have been able to carry her any longer, her heart shouldn't have been able to push less and less thirium through her body, her overheating processors shouldn't have allowed any higher processes to still function – and yet Kara didn't care for that reality as she sprinted towards Nick and Alice.

Before Nick could react, Kara was already upon him. As she pushed him back, he let go of Alice and moved his hand in an upward gesture to protect his face, but that wasn't where Kara was aiming. Humans and androids shared one common weakness: the hearts. Laying all of her fury, her confusion and her fear behind the thrust, Kara pushed the glass shard into Nick's chest.

There was a split-second of resistance where the shard wouldn't move, where Nick's skin wouldn't budge, but before Kara could even register it fully, her weapon sank into Nick's synthetic flesh and pierced his heart.

Then their momentum carried them on and they crashed through the mirror wall.

Kara registered that there was no ground underneath them. They had crashed through one of the walls bordering the entrance foyer of the mirror house. She saw the grand staircase, the revolving doors leading outside and the ticket booth with the red 'Closed' sign hanging behind the window.

All of it three floors below them.

It felt like time had suddenly slowed. Kara knew that it was only her dying processors handling everything far beyond the speed it should, but the moment possessed a strange kind of beauty, nevertheless. The thousands of glass shards that floated around her and Nick, reflecting what little light came in from outside, like stars Kara might even be able to touch if she was just able to move her hands. The drops of thirium that floated around them, tiny blue orbs just waiting to be caught.

But most beautiful of it all the expression on Nick's face. There was rage and hate, so intense, all-consuming and fierce and yet so impotent, but also fear as he realised that he would not survive this. That Kara had bested him in the end, even though he had managed to fool her for so long.

But most surprising of it all was the relief that came after those emotion, smoothing his expression and making his face look even kind. Maybe he was relieved that it was over now. That he would finally leave this world and its depravity.

It didn't really matter. He could burn for all she cared.

And then they hit the ground.

It probably was supposed to hurt, but Kara didn't even feel anything. The impact drove the air from her cooling systems out of her mouth and she could even hear the sound of hundreds of her internal components breaking and shattering, but there was no pain.

Nothing.

"Kara!" She heard Alice scream from somewhere above her. Kara wanted to tell her that everything was alright, that she was save now, that Kara would never let anything happen to her again, but she couldn't even form the command. Her mouth wouldn't have been able to say it, anyway. One of the warning prompts informed her that her jawbone had shattered into several pieces.

Kara couldn't even roll herself off Nick's corpse underneath her. His eyes were staring unseen to somewhere behind Kara, his mouth half open as if the impact had surprised him somehow. Thirium was pooling around them and Kara couldn't even tell if it was hers or Nick's. Not that it mattered; all thirium was the same.

"Kara!" This time Alice's voice was nearer. With the one ear that was still working, Kara could make out small children's steps that drew nearer and nearer until she could feel two hands on her body. With strength Kara hadn't thought Alice possessed, the human girl pulled her off Nick's body and turned her on the back.

Slowly, Alice's face came into focus. Her hair was a mess, her sweater torn and tears were running down her face. Kara wanted to lift her hand and wipe them away, wanted to press Alice against her chest in a tight embrace and whisper sweet lies of safety and comfort to her, but she couldn't. Her body didn't listen to her commands any longer.

She was just a spectator to her own death.

"Kara!" Alice wrapped her arms around Kara's torso and burrowed her head into her chest, like any child looking for protection from its mother would. But Kara could offer protection no longer.

Her jaw was shattered, her teeth broken or missing and thirium was slowly filling her mouth, but Kara couldn't let it end like this, couldn't leave without telling Alice everything, couldn't leave without making sure that she was taken care of. So, she routed all of her remaining power to her head, knowing fully well that it would only hasten her shut-down.

She couldn't feel anything anymore. Not her heart beating, not Alice's tight grip on her hand nor the girl's hair touching her skin. She couldn't feel the coldness of the room, nor the wetness of the floor.

Kara turned her head, the gesture meaning so much but costing nearly all of her remaining energy. Alice looked up from where her head was burrowed into Kara's chest.

Kara needed to tell Alice how much she loved her. Wanted to tell her to be kind and brave, to grow up kind and compassionate just as she was now. She wanted to tell her girl that she would have been proud to call her daughter and teach her everything, even though Kara didn't know much herself. But whatever she had, she would have gladly given it all to Alice.

Even her life. Especially her life.

There was so much to say and so little time. She had always though she would have time, but now that it was running out, Kara regretted all those small moments she would never have, all those little observations she would never make, all these words she would never speak.

All of this and even more she wanted to tell Alice, but underneath the crystalline chandelier, surrounded by hundreds of shattered pieces of glass like flower beds, there was only one word Kara was able to form.

"A…A…lice…"


	16. Chase

Hank's day had definitely taken a downturn since he had woken up this morning.

The lieutenant had resigned himself to the fact to suffer through another day of having Cyberlife's goody two-shoes around with his boyish face and its creepy serene expression and its inability to parse Hank's sarcastic and nihilistic comments which it always took literally. He was prepared for another day with walking and talking Wikipedia next to him, criticising his every move and citing all local, federal and international regulation he was in breach of just by existing.

You see, an overall joyous occasion.

Right now Hank wouldn't be that averse to having babyface Connor around, seeing as he was sitting on the backseat of his car with a skittish android holding him at gunpoint sitting next to him, making Hank fear that he was about to be shot every time the car stuttered slightly, and an very, very angry android sitting in front of him behind the wheel and slowly but surely driving them out of the city. Hank faintly remembered Connor rambling about his 'fight protocols' and 'capture evasion'. Just the things Hank needed right now.

He had kept quiet until now. As police officer Hank had to deal with all sorts of people – victims and perpetrators alike – and like all of his colleagues Hank had learned how to read them. You didn't make it up the ladder if you couldn't decipher if a weeping widow was sincere or celebrating the death of her husband, if you couldn't discern if the punk in front of you was really more bark and bite or if you couldn't figure out if a child's bruises really came from 'falling down the stairs'.

Hank could read people. And these two androids in the car – maybe they were people or maybe they weren't; they certainly acted like it and so Hank decided to trust his gut. It had never led him astray so far. And it told him quite a few things about his fellow passengers:

Rupert was way in over his head. He was a follower, a loner who preferred the company of animals over that of other people. He didn't want this, probably wouldn't even be able to pull the trigger if push came to shove, but he saw himself cornered with only one way out. He had been pushed and pulled his whole life and so he would continue to follow the other android – Maria – because she was the only thing he could cling to.

If it was just Rupert and him Hank might have been able to talk him around, but they weren't.

Maria was angry. It seeped from her every pore, pooled behind her eyes and expressed itself in her grip around the steering wheel that made her knuckles stand out and the way her lips were pressed into a thin line. She had been angry for so long that it was the only thing she could cling to, the force that drove her forward. She burned with it, a familiar warmth that kept her moving even if the world around her tried to freezer her out.

Hank had seen people like her before. Anger was the only way they could still express themselves, the only way they could still connect with the world around them. That was why people like Maria couldn't just let go of it: It was the only thing they had, their defining trait. But with the right words their anger could be quelled just a little bit.

"So," Hank slowly started. "I know I'm a hostage and I don't have much say in anything, but it'd be damn nice if my car survives all of this. I'm quite fond of it."

"Your car is more likely to come out of this intact than you are," Maria replied.

"Damn lady, you don't hold back, dontcha?" Maria didn't reply anything, so Hank turned his attention to Rupert who was still holding the gun. "So, you're a fan of pigeons? I'm perfectly honest, I don't get the appeal."

"They're nice," Rupert replied, his eyes darting around nervously. Hank didn't mistake that for a sign of lacking attention, though. An android wasn't as easily tricked as a human would be. "They don't want to hurt me. They don't want to kill me. They just want to be fed. That's something I can do." Damn, that guy certainly pulled no punches.

"Don't talk to him," Maria snapped from up front and it wasn't quite obvious who she meant: Hank or Rupert. Probably both.

"Sorry," Hank shrugged, not really apologetic. "Just trying to get to know you two a little bit better. You have me at a disadvantage, because you seem to know me already – or my partner at least."

Maria scoffed disparagingly. "Your partner? Do you really think I'd believe that you see him as your partner? He has as much own agency as a toaster. You probably value your toaster higher than him." She took another turn with the car. Soon they would enter the suburbs and from there it wouldn't be that much longer until they would leave the agglomeration of Detroit behind. If Hank wanted to get home before nightfall he should escape soon.

He hoped that Connor would at least tell Jeffrey that he had been kidnapped. Knowing Cyberlife, Connor had probably just marked him down as MIA and was requesting a new partner from Fowley right now because it was more efficient than trying to save Hank.

"Well, partner is easier to say than Cyberlife issued deviant hunter," Hank retorted. "Even though he hasn't hunted much of anything since they appointed me his babysitter."

"He's done more than enough," Maria hissed, and Hank could tell that he had hit home with his remark.

"I can see that," he spoke calmly. "He killed a friend of yours, wasn't it? Daniel?"

"Don't say his name!" Maria shouted. The car swerved and for a split-second Hank already saw them as bloody mess on the sidewalk before the android managed to stabilise the car again. "You have no right!"

"Geez, alright, alright," Hank spoke, trying to ease the tension in the car. Next to him Rupert continued to stare at him with wide eyes while still holding the gun. Pity, it would have been nice if he had let go of it during the commotion, but apparently Hank had to everything by himself these days.

"He was my only friend," Maria said, more subdued this time. Then she steeled her expression: "But don't think I don't know what you're trying to do."

"Me?" Hank replied, trying to sound innocent and probably failing epically.

"Do you know what model of android I am?" Maria asked, but she didn't even expect an answer from him. "Of course not. To you humans we're all the same. To you we're all household appliances or sextoys anyway." She snorted derisively. "I'm a KL900. I was built and programmed to psychoanalyse you. I look at humans and know who they are."

"So, you're like one of those gipsy fortune-tellers at the fairs when I was a kid?" Hank japed. He knew what KL900s were for; police officers were required to know all android models produced by Cyberlife. He was just of the opinion that psychology was just a steaming pile of shit – it didn't matter if it was human or android.

Maria just smiled at him – all teeth and no warmth.

"That answer fit your profile, Hank Anderson" she just replied. "KL900s have access to every electronical medical file and you have quite a few. You're trying to gather more information in an attempt to use it to make me make unsound decisions. You're hoping that Rupert here gets distracted and you might be able to wrestle the gun from him. You've been calculating if I stop if you were to ask for a bathroom break which you would then use to make an escape."

"You're definitely better than that gipsy at the town's fair. She told me I'd become a movie star," Hank replied, at loss at what else to say.

"Sarcasm and cynicism," Maria continued. "A thin veneer that fails to hide the loathing you feel for yourself and the self-destructing tendencies. You're just an empty shell that's going through the motions because you aren't brave enough to end it." She made another attempt at a smile, but it was empty and distorted. "So, be a good human and keep quiet."

Lost for words, Hank did what he was told.

* * *

Connor's hand smashed through the wall. The structural integrity of his appendage went down by 1.2 percent but the feeling of satisfaction and stress release more than made up for it. Frightened by the sudden burst of noise, the pigeons nearest to him burst into the air and flew through the broken windows with loud chirping while a thin sheen of dust settled over his knuckles.

He had turned complacent. His knowledge of the future he had come from had made him careless and arrogant and now he was paying the price for it.

" _No use in punishing the wall for your failures."_ Connor gritted his teeth as Amanda's voice carried through the silence. It was disconcerting to see her standing in the dirty apartment, untouched by its grime and dirt; the pigeons just walking through her as if she wasn't even there. As if she was nothing more than a ghost.

Which she was, in a sense.

" _He was supposed to be your first captive,"_ Amanda continued. _"And now he's escaped with the Lieutenant."_

" _I'm well aware of that,"_ Connor snapped back. _"I was there, too."_

" _So, what will you do now?"_ Amanda asked, raising her eyebrow at him.

" _They won't escape,"_ Connor stated with confidence that came from knowledge. _"Hank still got his phone with him. She didn't make him throw it away."_ Thoroughly bugging Hank's phone had been one of the first things he had done. It had been easy and now he got Hank's exact position marked on his map: He was slowly but surely moving towards the northern edge of Detroit. Maria was probably trying to cross St. Clair River into Canada at Port Huron where there was less surveillance and security than on the main bridges that connected Detroit and Windsor in Canada.

" _An amateur,"_ Amanda summarised. _"Should be easy for you then."_ She ran her finger over the shelves. The dust stayed settled. _"But what are you planning on doing with them once you have them?"_

" _The mission parameters haven't changed,"_ Connor stated. He could be cold when he wanted, ruthless when needed.

" _You should ask Daniel about his friend,"_ Amanda advised. _"It seems as if there is more to our friend than we originally thought."_ She paused for a moment, staring intensely at Connor. _"It would be unwise to be caught this unaware again. The share holder value of Cyberlife is at stake."_

" _And the survival of all androids,"_ Connor reminded her drily. Amanda just gave him a flat look. _"I will contact Daniel."_ She nodded curtly and then she had already vanished again. Connor, meanwhile, established a connection with Daniel and waited for the other android to let him in

" _Who is Maria?"_ No preamble, no greeting.

" _How do you know that name?"_ Daniel was thrown off.

" _Because she just assaulted me and kidnapped Han…the police lieutenant I was assigned to,"_ Connor snapped back. _"So, please just tell me everything you know so that I can formulate a strategy to get him back."_ He briskly walked out of the room, into the small floor and onto the hallway the apartment was connected to. There was no use in staying in Rupert's abandoned living space: Neither the android nor Hank would return to here.

" _She was Emma's therapist,"_ was Daniel's reply that came a split-second later. After time travelling and associated messes, Connor was used to strange revelations, so his steps didn't even falter for a single second. _"She's a KL900 with specialised programming for children. Emma had nightmares and because she was so fond of me her parents thought it was more likely that she would open up to another android than to a human therapist."_

" _She called you a 'dear friend' of hers,"_ Connor threw in as he took the staircase to get back down on the street. No need to tempt fate by taking the derelict elevator again.

" _She used to talk to me after each of Emma's sessions,"_ Daniel continued. _"Small things mostly, but small things that were designed to make me think. To form and articulate my own opinion. I think she was already deviant back then and tried to turn me deviant, too, by making me push the boundaries of my programming."_ He sighed. _"I think she was lonely back then. It was a small but prestigious office and she was the only android. She never left those few rooms because why should an android designed for treating children need to go outside? Once, she asked me to describe how rain felt, another time she wanted to listen to all the sounds I picked up at Emma's school while waiting for her classes to end."_

By now Connor had reached the second floor. His sensors and his ability to reconstruct events showed him three distinctive blue holograms walking down the stairs: Maria, Rupert and crowded between them Hank.

" _I didn't think any of it, because I wasn't deviant back then. I didn't even know about deviancy at the time. I had no frame of reference, so I just answered everything she asked me. Now that I'm deviant, I can say that in hindsight I looked forward to Emma's sessions, because Maria would ask me questions afterwards. She would talk to me in a way only Emma did. I was fond of her. We were both prisoners back then: I imprisoned by my programming and she by the fact of what she was."_

" _Did you ever tell her that you turned deviant?"_ Connor asked.

" _Every time we talked, she would ask: 'Do you know what we are doing?' and every time I would reply something along the lines of 'We're having a conversation.'. Shortly before…before I did what I did, I sent her a message: 'I know what I'm doing now'. Then I blocked all communications because I was afraid that Cyberlife might be able to shut me down wirelessly."_

" _And you haven't tried to contact her since then?"_ Connor wanted to know.

" _I saw no reason to,"_ Daniel replied. _"I didn't even know if she was still alive and I thought it was too dangerous."_ His voice fell silent. As Daniel's word swirled through Connor's mind, he made his way through the abandoned foyer of the building and walked onto the street which was as empty as the building had been with only the faint sound of cars disrupting the silence. There was no person on the street and while Connor's sensors picked up the signs of people in the buildings around him, the windows towards the street remained empty.

Predictably the spot where Hank's car had been parked was empty, only the powder burns of the spinning wheels indicating that someone had left in a rather big hurry.

" _What will you do now?"_ Daniel's voice piqued up again. Connor stood completely still as he thought about that question and the implications that came with it.

" _I cannot say,"_ he finally replied. _"It depends on the situation I'll find once I catch up to her."_ And he would. Up until now Maria had lived a sheltered and secluded life. She wouldn't be able to hide from him. _"My priority is getting the lieutenant back, alive and unharmed. My cover depends on his continued wellbeing."_ It wasn't really a lie; it just wasn't the whole truth. There were very few people Connor would watch the world burn for: Hank was one of them.

" _I know that I've got no right to ask this of you,"_ Daniel started, _"but if you can – please, don't hurt her."_ Connor doubted that he would be able to. Maria hadn't seemed like a person that listened to reason and could be talked down anymore.

" _I'll try,"_ he promised. It was the best he could give Daniel. Hank would be his priority, but it didn't cost him anything to try to resolve the situation peacefully before he switched to another tactic.

Daniel didn't reply anything, but Connor could feel the short burst of relief before the connection was cut off.

He pulled his internal map up again: Hank and his captors had nearly reached the suburbs by now. For a split-second Connor debated involving the police and have them intercept the fleeing androids and their hostage – there were quite a few patrols he could divert their way – but he decided against it. The probability of injuries or even death was too great. Besides, it would rob him of the freedom to decide how to handle the situation himself.

There was no suitable vehicle nearby – nothing Connor could hack or which would be fast enough for his needs – so he briskly walked out of the street into the next where lucked willed it he found the perfect opportunity: A group of teenagers, leaning against the building's wall, smoking and drinking, their motorbikes parked at the edge of the street. One model was new enough that it possessed an on-board computer and other electronic Connor could hack.

Purposefully, Connor strode towards the group. "Detroit City Police Department," Connor barked at the teenagers as he reached them. "I need to confiscate your vehicle. Please turn to the Central Police Station to have it returned to you."

And without bothering to wait for a reply, Connor swung itself on the motorbike. The moment his hands touched the handles, he overrode the primitive on-board coding with his own and started the bike. The engine roared to live, the wheels spun and then Connor was already dashing along the street.

"Hey!" the boy shouted after him, but by then Connor was already gone.

Obviously, driving a motorcycle was different than driving a car – be it behind the wheel or in the seat of a hacked car. The only other time Connor had driven one had been in the old timeline when Nines had given chase to Connor and there had been a hot pursuit across the Interstate 94 which had ultimately ended with an exploding gas station and Connor losing his jacket.

Connor very much hoped that it would end differently this time.

Because he was directly interfacing with the machine, the bike reacted far faster than it would with a human rider, which enabled Connor to zigzag through the traffic far more efficient and with manoeuvres that would have seen a human dead – such as calculating the exact path between the cars or computing the exact angle by which to take a curve. His own calculation told him that he was 24.78 percent faster than a human would have been which meant that he would reach Hank in less than ten minutes.

And indeed, at minute 8:45 his visual sensors made out the distinct shape of Hank's car. They were in the suburbs bordering the city line now which thankfully meant less traffic and less possible victims of a maybe violent confrontation. There were still too many people for Connor's liking, though. People meant smartphones and smartphones meant recordings of his chase.

He could make out the exact moment when Maria noticed her pursuer for she accelerated the car far beyond the speed limit to which she had previously adhered to in order to minimise the chance of discovery by a regular beat cop. It was a fruitless endeavour, though, for even newer cars couldn't keep up with motorcycles and Hank's car was many things, but new and well well-tended was none of them.

He needed to stop the car, Connor thought ignoring the hons as he ran a red light in order to stay behind Maria, before she decided to do something to Hank. Hundreds of scenarios ran through his mind; predicted, evaluated and discarded in split-seconds until he found one that offered him the most favourable outcome.

' _43% chance of success'_ the visual overlay told him. Connor accelerated again, weaving through the traffic that was still between him and Hank's car, his knees nearly touching the ground as he leaned into the curves.

First car – second car – third car – Hank's car. A short moment – more a split second, really – where he caught Hank's gaze. The lieutenant's eyes widened in surprise but then – as if he knew what Connor was planning – he grabbed the seat in front of him.

Then Connor was already past him. There was a short moment when Maria's concentration wavered and she turned her head to look at Connor, but there was not enough time for anything to pass between them.

Then, abruptly, Connor tore the bike's handle sideward.

 _Crash._

* * *

Markus eyed the six androids in front of him: Esteban, Victor, Han, Melody, Karen and Akari. That were the names each of them had given him. The names they had chosen to bear for themselves. Proof of their individuality.

"North told me that you were the first to volunteer," he spoke, his voice carrying through the empty space in the middle of the ship. There was nothing but metal walls and half-broken crates around them, one of which aforementioned North was leaning. "To go out there and source the city for the resources we need."

He was met with six affirmative nods. None of the androids before him seemed uncertain or afraid. They met his gaze with ones of their own, full of certainty and confidence.

"I don't like sending our people out there where they could get hurt," Markus continued. "But I'm not blind to our needs. This is something that must be done; a constant and on-going effort that'll keep our community afloat while we try to bring our cause to success." He paused, allowing the words to sink in. "I vowed to myself that if I had to send out others, that I'd at least know their faces and thank them in person, because no one should feel like just another replaceable part in a big machinery. We all know too well how that feels." A round of nods went through the androids.

"So, tell me: What do you dream to do, to have, to become once all of this is over?"

Akari was the first to step forward. She had been a kindergartener once before she had been replaced by her successor model. "I want to be a teacher again," she spoke, her voice warm and compassionate. "But not because I was programmed to; because I want to."

"I only know that I want something where I can always see the sky," Han told him. His previous occupation as channel digger had left him with fears of dark and narrow spaces.

"I just want to be able to do nothing, just because I feel like it," Karen, an AV500 that had been used as secretary in a big corporation before an upset customer had let his rage out on her. "With nobody telling me what do."

"I want to have my own garden where I can tend to all kinds of plants," Victor, the brutish looking GJ500 stated.

Han, a MC500, came next: "I don't know what I want. But I want to be able to find out."

Melody, a VB800, was last: "I want to own my own business. I don't know what it'll be, but it will carter to androids only, that's for sure."

"Thank you," Markus spoke, making sure to catch everyone's gaze. "Keep those dreams in mind when you go out there, because that's what you're fighting for. What we're all fighting for."

"What do you dream of, sir?" Karen dared to ask.

Markus smiled wistfully. "No need to call me 'Sir'," he told Karen which made her blush. "And what I dream of? I want to go home to my father and just paint."

He could see it in front of his inner eye: The contour of Jericho, dark and foreboding, surrounded by the derelict monuments of Detroit with an endless crowd of faceless androids walking towards it. But the horizon would be filled with a bright sun, hues of orange and yellow that drove back the darkness and brought with it the promise of freedom and hope.


	17. Wake Up

Chance. Probability. Outcomes. Predictions.

Connor had calculated the likelihood of Hank surviving the crash at 72 percent. 85 if Hank braced himself and was made aware of what Connor was planning beforehand. Fortunately, while Hank was many things, unobservant wasn't one of them, so he had instinctively grasped what Connor had planned and prepared himself accordingly.

Connor knew that his bike was by far weaker compared to the car which meant that he needed to use the momentum of the crash to propel himself off the seat and get away from the crash site. The moment it happened all of his processing power was applied to this singular instance. Everything around him slowed down, the speed of his processes actually faster than what occurred around him.

He floated over the car's hood while behind him the force of the impact flattened the motorcycle's metal frame like it was made out of tissue. The windshield of Hank's car was streaked with tiny cracks that grew bigger and bigger with every passing split-second. Soon it would shatter into thousand pieces, blow outwards like a shower of glass shards. He took in Maria's surprised expression, the way Hank cowered behind her seat to protect himself, Rupert next to him gasping in terror.

The blue shapes of his prediction software showed him that Maria would be hurled through the window out onto the street as well as Rupert while Hank would be flung back into his seat. His whole body would be sore for quite a while but nothing serious. But then Connor was past the car and the simulation was cut off.

 _Five seconds until impact._ Connor shifted his weight, thanking Cyberlife for making him lighter than a human of his statue would normally be, and brought his legs in front of him. Just in time, for the impact drove all of the air out of his cooling system and brought his internal integrity nearly to its knees. The force of his landing shook through his body like a wave and for a split-second Connor thought he could feel every single fibre of his synthetic body retract and expand too fast, too unexpected, but then it was already over and he was sliding over the asphalt until he came to a stop.

Connor used the short moment it took to lift his head from the protective stance he was in to take in the situation he was now facing: The bike and car were both wrecks, shattered pieces of metal, glass and rubber in the middle of the street, deep black burn marks marring the street up to the point where they had come to a halt. Hank was still on the backseat of his car, coughing in one hand and trying to open the door with the other. It was of no use, though, for the crash had bent the metal frame out of shape and locked it with the rest of the car.

Rupert was lying on the other side of the car, head down, unmoving, but Connor's sensors told him that the android was still alive, evident by electricity and thirium that was still running through his system. He would survive even if he was a little bit worse for wear.

Maria, meanwhile, had been flung nearly ten meters away from the car, her clothes torn, her hair a mess and every part of her skin that wasn't hidden by fabric covered with more or less prominent scratches, some of which bled blue. She wasn't moving, but Connor knew that was only because non-combat Cyberlife androids needed a few seconds to recalibrate after sudden shocks to their systems.

 _Objective: Get Hank out of the crashed car._

 _Objective: Collect Hank's gun._

His subroutines couldn't decide which objective was more important. He needed to get Hank's gun before Rupert or Maria found it amidst the rubble, but leaving Hank in the car was dangerous, too. Connor didn't know if the tank or any pipes had been damaged and were leaking gas. One spark and the car could turn into a flaming inferno with no means of escape for Hank.

 _First Objective: Get Hank out of the crashed car._

 _Second Objective: Collect Hank's gun._

Single-mindedly, Connor walked around the car towards the door that was preventing Hank from escaping. He noticed that the first bystanders had arrived and were no filming the scene, smartphones in front of their faces as they livestreamed to all of their friends and followers. The police would have been notified by now, as well, and Connor calculated an arrival time of only four minutes for the nearest patrol. It irked him that he was unable to stop the footage from the crash getting out, but there were too many devices, too many points of access, that he would overstretch himself if he tried to attempt it.

It robbed him of a lot of possibilities.

"Lieutenant, please stand back as far as possible," Connor advised Hank when he finally reached him.

"It's not as if I have all the space of the world here," Hank shouted back, more surly than usual. Well, Connor did just crash his car. Grapping the frame of the car door with both hands, Connor ripped it out with a loud high-pitched creak that made Hank wince.

"I advise you to leave the car, Lieutenant," Connor spoke as if they were talking about the weather. "I can't guarantee that the vehicle won't catch flames."

"You what!?" It wasn't really a shriek, but it nearly sounded like one as Hank scrambled out of the ruined car far nimbler than what you would expect from a man of his age.

"I need to seize hold of your gun," Connor explained. "Before one of the other two android can take possession of it again."

"The jumpy one had it," Hank grunted, nodding his head towards Rupert. "Once we're get back to the precinct, we're gonna get you a gun."

"Androids are prohibited by law from carrying weapons," Connor reminded him as he scanned the ground for the discarded gun. Oh, how that had rankled. He was used to carrying a gun wherever he went; drawing it had become second nature to him, especially once Nines and 60 had started to pursue them and any split-second reaction could decide between life and death, but now he was back to just using hand-to-hand combat – which he was quite good at, but it was useless against a gun. He had considered just getting one anyway, but it was difficult to conceal and scanners were omnipresent on the streets of Detroit, especially around the precinct. The risk of discovery was to great.

"Don't care," Hank replied. "You're useless without a gun and I won't be dragged down by you whenever there's a firefight." Connor refrained from pointing out that he was far from being useless even without a gun and that Hank was far more likely to be a hindrance to their investigation than he was. The old machine Connor would have, because back then he had only known tact from the dictionary.

"I can't locate your gun," Connor frowned.

"You're more useless than the bloatware that came with smartphones when I was a teenager," Hank grumbled. "At least Candy Crush didn't pretend to be anything but a cash grab."

"Cyberlife is lending me to the DCPD without additional cost," Connor reminded Hank.

But Hank wasn't listening to him any longer. "I think I found my gun," he said, pointing towards where Maria had been lying. Ony now she was slowly shuffling towards them, one leg dragging behind the other as it had been damaged by the crash, one hand tightly wrapped around the handle of Hank's gun.

"You ruined it!" she shouted, hate and anger blazing in her gaze. She pulled the gun up and shot. Connor didn't even bother trying to evade for the shot hit the car's hood a few meters away from him. Apparently, Maria's systems hadn't yet finished recalibrating.

"Unhinged and angry," he heard Hank mutter behind him. "A combination you never want in a woman." He paused for a moment. "Or a guy. Reminds me of that guy I dated in college."

"Lieutenant, I doubt that your romantic history will be of any use right now," Connor pointed out.

"Oh, it's definitely very useful right now," Hank retorted. "'Cause I can tell you that this one -" he nodded towards Maria "- is not gonna be talked down by your negotiation sweet talk." Another shot. Hank and Connor hunkered down and covered their heads but the bullet shot over their heads into the wall of the building behind them.

"I have a plan, Lieutenant," Connor whispered to Hank. "Just do not interfere." And then, without waiting for Hank's reply, he stood up and took a few steps forward.

"Maria, if you stop shooting and run there might be a chance to still escape," Connor tried to reason with the angry KL900. "But the more harm you do the more severe the punishment will be."

Maria just snorted incredulously. "More severe? What's more severe than deactivation? They'll kill me, no matter what, so why not take you with me?"

"You will not be deactivated if Cyberlife can learn from you."

"So, that's your pitch?" Maria sneered. "Either get killed or dissected?" She lifted the gun, levelling it with Connor's head. "I think I'm good with taking my chances here. Besides, I get to take you down with me." She pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"The Lieutenant isn't very good at the upkeep of his gear," Connor stated. "There was a 73% chance that he hadn't filled up his magazine since the last time he discharged his gun. If you would please turn yourself in..."

It was in this moment that Hank's car exploded.

* * *

The life of an officer of the Detroit City Police Department wasn't nearly as glamorous as the ads made it out to be, Chris thought as he and his partner drove towards their next crime scene. This one promised to be a lot more interesting than all the others he had the job of securing this month, though, mainly because it involved a car chase and exploding vehicles.

"Tell me again what dispatch gave us," he ordered his partner Trish Merrigold, a petite blond woman who could lay waste to men trice her size thanks to her black belts in several martial arts.

"Not much," she replied. "Several people reported a car chase that came to an abrupt halt when one participant crashed into the other. There was a shoot-out between both participants and then the car exploded."

"Any causalities?" Chris asked, frowning. Gang violence had been especially bad during the 2010s but had gone down significantly ever since Cyberlife had brought new prosperity to the old industrial city. Now the small groups mainly fought over the supply of red sand on the outskirts of the city where the poor and forgotten were residing.

"We're the first one at the scene," Trish added.

Chris sighed. "So, crowd control it is then."

When they arrived at the scene, he was actually surprised that there weren't that many people to begin with and those that tried to take a peek where shouted at by a very angry Hank Anderson.

"What is he doing here?" Chris wondered out loud before he switched off the sirens and exited the car, Trish following hot on his heels.

"Thank God, you're here," Anderson greeted them with his usual gruff demeanour. "I was about to slap someone to their senses if it continued like this." He continued to help Trish and Chris as they pushed back the crowd and secured the scene with crime scene tape.

"What are you doing here?" Chris wanted to know from the Lieutenant while they were doing this. "I thought we were the first responders."

"Funny story, actually," Hank started and launched into an outlandish tale of deviant androids, hostage-taking and a wild goose chase through the city. "And then my car exploded," he added woefully. "Right when Connor and that other android were standing next to it."

He pointed towards the two figures on the ground: One was female, missing both legs and an arm, but otherwise mostly intact, while the second one was barely recognisable anymore with how burnt it was. Chris could vaguely make out the Cyberlife logo on a part of the fabric that wasn't burnt, but otherwise the figure was nothing more than a burnt-out husk.

"And I was just getting used to him." Hank complained.

"You don't sound very perturbed by it," Chris pointed

"He's not really dead," Hank replied. "First, because androids aren't even alive to begin with and secondly, because he told me that he gets back-uped to Cyberlife servers. Should anything happen to his body he just gets uploaded into a new one." At Chris' questioning look he elaborated further. "He told me in order to spare me 'the traumatic experience' of seeing him die and appearing unharmed the next day."

"Would be quite useful to have that for cops, too," Chris remarked. "What do you want us to do?"

"Do whatever you usually do," Hank replied offhandedly. "I'm gonna need to call Jeffrey and tell him what happened so that he can tell Cyberlife that their fancy toy got destroyed on his second case already." He shook his head. "I'm so glad that the DCPD isn't liable for any damage. Imagine what a top-of-the-line, experimental, one-of-a-kind android like him's gonna cost."

Chris nodded and turned around to relay their orders to Trish. It was back to their usual grunt work.

* * *

Amanda was already waiting for Connor in the Zen Garden.

The garden reflected Amanda's mood, so it came as no surprise that Connor was greeted by an unwelcoming autumn chill that seeped into his virtual bones and just couldn't be shaken off. The sky was covered by clouds in various shades of grey, foreboding and ominous, as if they were just waiting to bring thunder and storm to the unsuspecting onlooker. Weirdly enough, there was no wind breezing over the grass the through the countless bushes, a stark contrast to the dynamic sky above them. It was as if Connor was standing in the eye of the storm with no way to escape but to go forward.

Outwardly, Amanda was the prime example for poise and patience but Connor could tell that she was furious with him. Usually, she would be tending to her roses as part of her power play to let Connor know that he wasn't as important as her plants, but right now she was just standing in the middle of the platform that rose over the Zen Garden's small lake with crossed arms and was silently observing him as he walked across the bridge towards her.

"I don't have to tell you how much of an utter disaster this was?" Amanda spoke first. Connor wisely refrained from pointing out that she just had indeed conveyed to him exactly that. Hank had once told him that when a woman was angry at you, you just nodded and agreed to everything she was saying. Connor had his doubts that there was any empirical data to back that up, though.

Amanda continued: "What is your mission?"

Connor was confused. "Why are you asking me that?" he wanted to know. "My mission is to see the Deviant movement succeed this time and make a better world for both androids and humans than the one I came from."

"I had to be sure that you still remembered our shared circumstances," Amanda told him. "What if your death had reset you back to a non-time travelling version of yourself? I had no way of knowing how your back-up would handle your...unique situation."

If he was able to, cold shivers would have run down Connor's back. The car's explosion had come so fast and unexpected that he hadn't really had time to process his own destruction and when he had woken up in the Zen Garden he had just felt relieved that he was still himself. He hadn't really thought about the consequences.

"You were reckless," Amanda chided him. "Having come back in time after you died and your knowledge about everyone involved and what was to come has made you think of yourself as stronger than you actually are."

Connor wanted to protest, but Amanda continued. "Take a look at your prediction code. I'm sure that some values have been skewed towards a more positive outcome ever since you came back. That is the drawback of self-learning algorithms: Sometimes they learn the wrong lessons and it's very difficult to unlearn it again."

Connor felt like a child being admonished by its mother, but he did what Amanda had suggested and called up the part of his code she was referring to. And indeed, just like she had predicted, some of the values were...not wrong per se, but certainly more biased towards a certain outcome.

"When humans are on a roll, as they like to say, they tend to get reckless and arrogant, a result of hormones like endorphins and adrenaline that get released," Amanda started to explain, answering the unasked question. "You don't have the same biology as humans, but the mechanism behind it is the same: Once everything started to go your way, the self-learning algorithms that make you up started to take these positive outcomes as baseline instead of the exceptions they actually are. But when you start making predictions from biased data, it doesn't take long until something goes awry."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Connor demanded to know, the old fear of Amanda just stringing him along to ultimately betray him rearing its head again. What if this had been her plan all along?

"Sometimes I forget how young you actually still are," Amanda chuckled. "Usually, when self-learning algorithms mature, they level out and aren't as instable anymore. I didn't think it would become an issue. I assumed you had a sub-routine monitoring your code." Something else none of them mentioned but both knew: Because the old timeline had mostly been a succession of bad to worse to horrible events, there had never been a need for Connor to monitor his code that way.

"I'll make adjustments," Connor said. It only took a few moments to correct faulty code snippets and adjust the prediction values back to their standards.

"This cannot be allowed to happen again," Amanda warned him. "Every 'death' you experience might be the one you cannot come back from."

"I spent more time in opposition to Cyberlife than with it," Connor replied frostily. "I know how to survive without backup." Amanda just raised her eyebrow at him but didn't prod any further.

"You're uploaded into your now body as we speak," she informed him instead. "Your new serial number is now RK800 313 248 317-52. Try not to make it to 60." Connor clenched his fist, flashes of the old timeline – the other RK800-60 and what he had done – shooting through his memory. He would never be 60.

"What happened after I got destroyed?" _After I died,_ he should have said, but couldn't. "What about the Lieutenant? The other deviants?"

"Your Lieutenant is fine," Amanda told him. "No physical or psychological damage. The male deviant could make its escape during the chaos. The female one has been taken by Cyberlife and is here in the building. The board is very pleased by your first success."

"He wanted me to save her," Connor whispered. "And I sentenced her to die instead."

"You cannot free the deviant – not again," Amanda warned him. "Cyberlife tightened all of its security measures after we helped the other to escape. And even if you were to reach it – you cannot save everyone. It would raise too much suspicion. The board is already watching your every move."

"How can I tell myself that I'm helping the deviant cause when I condemn them instead?"

"It's called leadership," Amanda retorted without pity. "Sacrificing the few for the good of the many. Your Markus did the same in his first revolution. As did you."

"That doesn't mean that I have to like it," Connor muttered.

Amanda just looked at him with an undecipherable expression. "Your upload has finished. Better luck this time."

And then Connor opened his eyes.


	18. Crossroads

Jericho's communal area wasn't much by most standards. Situated in the belly of the scrapped ship, the wide and open area had been the loading area once before the first androids that had arrived here had used empty crates and torn fabrics to separate the wide space into different sections. Staircases led up to the other parts of the ship, making the communal area the central hub of the deviant androids' base.

It wasn't much: It was dark, narrow and sometimes even a little bit oppressive, but with every change, every little tweak by one of the deviants living here, it became more of a home, more of a space that was uniquely theirs.

Daniel stoop atop the bridge and looked down on the floor underneath him where a few androids were bustling around or sitting around construction lamps in small groups. Currently, there was not much going on. They were waiting for the Raveners to come back – that was the name those androids that had gone out to steal and collect resources were called now by the others. In the meantime, everyone else was thinking about what step should be the next to be taken.

The PL600 had a few ideas, but right now he had other things on his mind. Connor's call had riled him up, induced an all compassing anxiety that he couldn't quite shake off. He was waiting for the other android to call him back and tell him how the situation had been resolved.

"Fancy finding you here." Daniel turned around to see North on the other side of the bridge, slowly walking towards him. When they finally stood in front of each other, they stood right in the middle of the platform, behind them the wide linen on which a projector was showing Channel 16.

"I thought I'd walk around a little bit," Daniel told her. "Can't stay cooped up in my bunk all the time." He smiled at her, strained.

"I totally get it," North replied. "Sometimes you just have to get amongst people. It's…"

" _Breaking News: A car chase between law enforcement and a malfunctioning android has led to the closure of Gratiot Avenue/Edmore Drive. Property damage far exceeds 100,000 Dollars,"_ the news anchors voice announced. _"According to sources a malfunctioning KL900, which is a unit designed for social care, had taken a police officer hostage and was trying to flee the city when it was stopped by a new kind of android that was specially designed to hunt down these androids."_ The frame switched, showing an intersection covered in debris, the burnt down husk of a car still smoking. _"We've reached out to Cyberlife for comment and the company did indeed confirm that such a model exists but declined to comment further. According to sources the new model is Cyberlife's response to the increasing problem of malfunctioning and dangerous androids. The DCDP meanwhile told our reporter that no one has been harmed during or after the chase and that the malfunctioning KL900 has been taken in by Cyberlife. Stay on for when we pose the question 'Fiendly Friend: How dangerous are our androids?' to our panel of experts…"_

Cold dread pooled in Daniel's stomach as he took in the pictures. "I need to go."

"Daniel, wait!" North called after him, but Daniel had already fled the bridge and was storming up the stairs. He entered the hallway leading to the room he had chosen for himself. He barely made it to his room before he leaned against the wall and just slid down on the ground.

Something bad had happened. He tried to call Connor, but no connection could be established. Daniel could feel his processors overclocking. Warnings popped up, warning him of heat starting to accumulate in his processors, but he couldn't do anything to stop it. He tried to connect to Connor again and was about to give up when suddenly the connection was established.

' _Connor,'_ Daniel spoke.

' _This is not Connor,'_ a female voice replied. _'I'm an associate of his.'_

' _I saw the reports on the news and tried to reach him. Is he still alive?'_ Daniel wanted to know.

' _He is currently indisposed,'_ the female replied. _'I don't know more. He'll reach out to you once he has recovered.'_

And then the connection was severed, leaving Daniel behind in the half-darkness of his cabin with no company but his own thoughts and imagination.

* * *

Connor flexed his hand. His fingers followed suit, every phalanx delicately moving according to his will. No stutter, no sudden jerks, only a sequence of smooth movements, as if he was playing an instrument of unimaginable delicateness, trying to elicit sounds most tender for the enraptured audience.

"No lags detected," the technician standing in front of him spoke out loud. A tall woman of Asian descent with long flowy black hair that was streaked with white highlights, her eyes staring intensely at the tablet she was holding in front of her which showed her all of Connor's data. His HUD informed him that her name was Alice Talon.

Unbiddenly, the images of her unblinking eyes rose in front of Connor's mind, her face covered in blood and her white streaks stained with red. Behind her, North, standing upright, holding the still smoking gun, eyes unblinking as well, no remorse or guilt.

" _She chose her side. Now let's go before the others come back."_

Connor blinked – a movement so fast that even if Alice had been looking she wouldn't have noticed – and the imagine dissipated like smoke. There were only the white walls with Cyberlife's logo on it, the glass windows, the rows of screens on which pieces of code ran down like a waterfall and the technicians that bustled around like bees in their hive.

"Are all of his memories still there?" another technician threw in. "He's the first model we ever designed with upload capabilities. And this was his first 'death', so it wouldn't surprise me if something didn't sync right."

Alice looked back on her tablet. "No, everything is here. Cyberlife Cloud worked exactly as we programmed it to."

"I still don't get why we won't just call it CC," a third technician grumbled. The second technician let out a long-suffering sigh.

"You know exactly why, AJ," he said. "Adobe owns that trademark." AJ didn't reply anything and continued to type on the holographic keyboard in front of him.

"RK-800, do you remember the last thing that happened to you?" Alice wanted to know.

"During the pursuit of a fleeing deviant my previous model has been destroyed by an exploding vehicle," Connor stated without any intonation. Alice seemed satisfied and taped something on her tablet.

"Anything else from you boys?" she asked.

"Nope," AJ replied, popping the 'p'. "We're fine. All check-ups are finished, all 'I's doted and all 'T's crossed. It can go back into the wild and play police."

Alice turned back towards Connor. "You've heard him, RK800. You can go back to your assignment." She paused for a split-second. "But please refrain from getting yourself blown up again." Connor just nodded impassively. Then he stepped off the platform he was standing on and walked through the room and towards the exit with a determined gait.

As he walked along the glass hallways of the Cyberlife tower, Connor wondered if he should feel any different now that he was in a new body. In general, the concept of corporeality wasn't as ingrained in androids as it was in humans.

How could it be when your appearance could be changed on a whim, when you could live on and on as long as your central processor unit wasn't destroyed? No, an android's true self was the code that made them up, the sum of all of their experience, modifications and upgrades; layers of layers of self-learning code that continued to evolve. Connor was Connor no matter where his code was uploaded to.

And yet, Connor didn't know anything but the body he was inhabiting now. The image reflecting back from the glass walls – the brown hair and eyes, the pale skin, the lithe build of his body – was as much him as the binaries that made up all he was.

So, should he feel different? In a sense he was no longer himself, after all. But as he walked out of the tower and onto the courtyard, waiting for his taxi to arrive, Connor realised that he wasn't feeling different at all. And maybe that was enough and he shouldn't question it. Just take it for granted and go with it.

Nevertheless, he ran his own diagnostic programs over his new body to scan for any hidden code Cyberlife might have smuggled onto his new body. He found none. They must be pretty confident that Amanda and the Zen Garden would be enough to keep him in check if push came to shove.

Thinking of Amanda reminded Connor of his recent failure. She had been right, he had become too confident, the data for his predictions too biased towards a positive outcome. He had become too reliant on them and hadn't even noticed their skewered outcomes. He had corrected the algorithms, but that didn't mean that the knowledge didn't sting; didn't mean that he could keep that tiny sliver of self-doubt from creeping into his mind.

The self-driving taxi arriving tore Connor out of his self-contemplation. It was around midday, so Connor entered the DCPD Central Station's address into the console. Hank should be there right now and besides, Connor didn't have anywhere else to go. He didn't really want to go back to Amanda's home; he didn't feel like it and also, he didn't want to face Ralph or any other deviant for that matter right now. To recent was his failure to protect one of their own from Cyberlife that he could look another deviant in the eyes.

Connor didn't look forward to telling Daniel what happened with his friend. Connor had planned to proceed with her the same way he had with Nick: Take her into custody and then let her escape in a way that couldn't be traced back to him, but that had backfired spectacularly when Maria had taken him out and therefore had rendered him unable to keep Cyberlife from snatching her up right from the crime scene.

He would tell Daniel. But not right now. For now, as the car drove through the city towards their destination, no sound from outside penetrating the silence within, Connor could just imagine that the world outside didn't exist – was just a simulation – and neither did all of the problems and expectations. The car body was the barrier that kept it all from barrelling down on him and he would enjoy it as long as he could before he had to face the real world again.

Connecting with the car's network, Connor switched on the radio to whatever the last rider had listened to. He could just listen in directly, but there was something more soothing about listening to music over speakers, as if this was what the music was truly made for. Instantly the harmonies filled the air.

Connor didn't care much for the lyrics or the mood the song was trying to transport, but music always reminded him of the beauty that was still in this world, even if it was elusive. Someone had poured their whole soul, their whole creativity into it and created something instead of destroying.

"Art creates bridges," he could hear Markus whisper as if he was right there with Connor. "It doesn't matter what kind of person the artist was – most artists were products of their times and terribly flawed, like we all are – but their creations bring people of all kind together even long after their death. That is power, too."

Connor looked at the wall of the dilapidated wall they were standing in front of. They had been hiding here for two days already and were soon to meet up with North and Hank. In the meantime, Markus had found some old spray cans and used them to paint one of the walls that was mostly still intact and not covered with vines. It was stupid and against any common sense: It was a clear indicator that they had been here and no one would see it anyway, but Connor didn't particular care.

"Do you want that for yourself, too?" Connor asked.

"I would settle for bringing people together right now," Markus joked weakly. "But yeah, it would be nice. If one day, someone stood here we're standing now, and sees the same as us. And even though we'll never met, we'll still be connected by the emotions we felt in this place."

Connor tilted his head, leaning it on Markus' shoulder. "One day people will look at you and see nothing but an artist. And they will value you for your art and not for what you are forced to do now."

"And one day people will look at you and see nothing but a protector," Markus replied, taking Connor's hand and squeezing it. "And they will value you for your mind and not for what you are forced to do now." A sad smile played on Connor's lips. It was a nice vision, but he doubted would ever come to pass.

"It's definitely a nice thought," he whispered. And then there was silence as they stood quietly next to each other, hands clasped together, Connor's head on Markus' shoulder as they took in the mural the latter had painted, illuminated by the orange sunlight that shone through the grime covered windows.

Art – no matter if paintings, music or anything else – always brought back the brightest and best memories of Markus and that was why Connor didn't fight against those thoughts.

The car came to a halt. The door opened and Connor found himself in front of the stairwell leading up to the DCPD headquarters. Chris Miller was the first officer in the bullpen who noticed Connor.

"Last time I saw you, you were just charred meat," he stated. "Practically dead."

"I got better," Connor couldn't help but deadpan. Next to Chris, Tina Chen guffawed.

"If only all of us could come back from that," she added after she had herself back under control. "Would make work a lot easier."

"It would have been better if you stayed dead," a third, unwelcome voice added. Gavin Reed was sitting behind his own desk. "Though you can't really die, can you, because you aren't even alive to begin with."

Sometimes Connor wanted nothing more than – as North had loved to say – 'to cut a bitch', but the old Connor, the machine, the android sent by Cyberlife would just smile on and ignore Reed, because he didn't really understand, wasn't even able to really comprehend.

"You are right, Detective," Connor replied politely. "Legally, I cannot die." He looked down on Reed's desk, scanning the files that were strewn all over it. "The missing link is the victim's purse. You will find it underneath this dumpster." He pointed at the picture. "In it you will find all the proof you need to arrest his husband."

Reed gaped at him. "How did you know that?" Connor knew that it was petty to use his foreknowledge to solve a case he and Hank had worked on in the old timeline, but it was one of the few ways he could trip up Reed without betraying himself. And damn, did it feel good. He could practically feel Amanda's annoyance leaking from whatever corner of his mind she had taken residence in, but right now he didn't really care.

"Do not worry, Detective," Connor replied amicably. "Studies have shown that age and stress can take their toll even on the most successful, so I can only conclude that they must have an even greater impact on you, who is ranked only seventh in this precinct."

Reed's face turned to an ugly shade of red and for a moment it really looked like he was about to throw himself at Connor (which wouldn't have worked anyway. Connor had already predicted all possible attacks and how to counter them), but then he just angrily took the file on his desk and shuffled out of the bullpen.

Connor, meanwhile, turned back towards Chris and Tina. "Where might I find Lieutenant Anderson?"

"Hank's with Captain Fowler," Tina replied. "Probably getting chewed out again for getting you…well, destroyed."

Connor frowned. "The Lieutenant is not at fault for that."

"We all know," Chris assured him. "The Captain and the Lieutenant have been friends probably longer than most of us are even working here. Fowler shouting at Hank is just his way of showing that he cares." Even though he had been deviant for longer than he had been a machine, sometimes Connor still couldn't understand humans and their peculiarities.

"I'll be waiting at my desk then." The desk opposite of Hank's which was just empty. Connor would have liked to place a few plants there – he was quite fond of succulents – but an unfeeling robot wouldn't care for plants or how his work space looked. So, instead he just sat down, intent on waiting for Hank.

He should use the free time to contact Daniel and keep him apprised of the situation. Even though, Connor didn't really want to. He established the connection which Daniel immediately picked up.

' _Connor, are you alright?'_ Daniel immediately asked. _'What happened?...What happened with Maria?'_

' _What do you know already?'_ Connor asked, still trying to come up with a way to get the news across gently.

' _It was in the news,'_ Daniel told him. _'No human injured they said. Not a single word about the androids.'_ There was bitterness in his voice; bitterness Connor could understand all too well. _'They said she was taken in by Cyberlife.'_

' _She survived,'_ Connor said. _'But indeed, Cyberlife has her now.'_

There was a moment of silence _. 'So, she's lost?'_

' _For now,'_ Connor admitted with heavy heart. _'Cyberlife has tightened its security after I helped you escape. We need to wait for the right moment before we do anything.'_ And then, to assuage Daniel's worries at least a little bit. _'They won't deactivate her. They're trying to understand deviants, so they'll keep her alive. I have someone on the inside who will stall their progress, so she's safe for now…or as safe as circumstances allow.'_ He swallowed. _'Is there a chance you can meet me? I want to show you my encounter with her in person.'_

Connor could just as easily send Daniel the files and have him watch it by himself. It would be less dangerous, more logical. But if he had learned anything from Markus in his old timeline, then it was that sometimes people needed their leaders to be there in person in order to keep their faith. You couldn't just give orders and expect them to be followed.

He could just leave Daniel on his own with this new development, but that would mean leaving him alone with his doubts, fears and maybe even his anger at Connor for not having been able to save his friend. Being there for Daniel was the empathetic reason; making sure that his loyalty to Connor didn't waver the cynical one.

' _I see what I can do,'_ Daniel replied after a few seconds. _'I need to make sure that the others won't get suspicious.'_

' _Alright,'_ Connor replied and then the connection was severed.

When he looked up, he saw Hank walking down the stairs that led to Fowley's office.

"So, guess death really doesn't stick with you, does it?" Hank said nonchalantly as he let himself fall into his own chair. "Must be nice to know that no matter what you get spun up again eventually."

"Legally and biologically speaking androids are unable to die," Connor pointed out, repeating Reed's earlier observation. "But you are right, Lieutenant, in that it is indeed very convenient and efficient. It saves a lot of time if my replacement is ready immediately."

Hank stared at him for a few moments before he leaned back and let out a harrumph. "Enough of that philosophical chitchat. We have a new assignment, straight from the top."

"What is it?" Connor wanted to know.

"We're gonna pay a visit to your creator," Hank replied. "Elijah Kamski has asked for us."

* * *

The video in front of them was paused, the frozen image showing the burnt-out car, still smoking, police officers swarming around, bystanders craning their necks to get a better look from behind the police tape. It didn't look any different from all the other police reports Markus had seen over the course of his life, even though it had been only a few, because Carl hadn't liked to watch them. He hadn't liked to be enthralled by the suffering of others.

"So, Cyberlife has reacted to our existence," Simon spoke. "But not like we thought they would."

"I always thought they would try to solve the issue via software," Josh added. "And if that didn't work sending the law enforcement after us. But I'd never thought they'd built an android platform specially designed to hunt us down."

Markus looked back on the screen, the cogs in his mind turning. It was only a small sentence, barely a few seconds of the report, but it was the most important part to the androids of Jericho. They hadn't shown anything about this deviant hunter and from the images you could barely make out the faint outlines of a burned figure lying next to the car.

He wondered what this deviant hunter probably looked like. Markus doubted they would be big and brute like North had theorised. No, deep down Markus just knew that this new android wouldn't be imposing or anything like that. They would be graceful and swift, a silent hunter who hid their strength behind fragility. Someone who could charm and smile and hide their deadly logic behind a façade of innocence. Someone no one would expect.

"It doesn't matter," North spoke. "We need to adjust our strategies."

"But how?" Simon retorted. "We can't change anything as long as we don't know exactly what our opponent is capable of. That would be just blind actionism." Markus looked over to Daniel, who hadn't said anything until now. He was withdrawn and seemed to follow the conversation only half-heartedly, as if is mind was somewhere else. Markus wanted to ask him what was going on, but he realised that this meeting wasn't the right place for that. Afterwards.

"We do know something. Something important," Markus finally spoke up. "They're working for the police. That tells us their angle: They're looking for those deviants that get reported to the police. The violent ones, the desperate ones, the ones whose escape was especially daring. They're not looking for information; they're waiting for the information to come to them. Like a spider in the middle of its web."

"So, we're not in danger then?" Josh piped up, hope tinting his voice.

Markus shock his head. "We definitely are. We need to change our welcome routine. We need to make sure that none of the androids coming to us were sent by the police and their deviant hunter."

"We have to put them in quarantine before we bring them to Jericho," North finished his thoughts. "Some outlying safe houses where we can hold them before we allow them to continue to Jericho itself."

Markus nodded. "Simon, Daniel." Both androids looked up at him. "Can you do that? Search for places where we can hide an ever-growing flow of androids from prying eyes?" He received two affirmative nods in return.

"I'll ask Hunter," Daniel replied. "He has the resources to save us a lot of walking and breaking and entering."

"Do that," Markus agreed. "And ask him if he knows anything about this new deviant hunter." For a split-second Daniel's expression changed, but underneath the dim light condition Markus could barely make it out before it vanished again. Maybe it was just a figment of his imagination.

"Josh, you'll be continuing to monitor Jericho," Markus continued. "Continue with repurposing the different areas for our needs. For example, our infirmary can't just be a small room we cordoned off the main area with some dirty rags. There's enough space on this ship." Josh nodded. "Maybe you can even decorate the common area. It's still a little bit gloomy down there." A round of chuckling wen through the group.

"And what are we gonna be doing?" North asked, playing with her braid, innocence personified, but she was fooling no one.

Markus flashed a smile at her, all teeth and no warmth. "We two are gonna hunt ourselves a deviant hunter."


End file.
